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W  Lectures  on  Literature p 

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Catholic  Summer  and  Winter  School  Library 

NOW  READY: 

LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

by  Richard  Malcolm  Johnston. 

PREHISTORIC  AMERICANS. 

by  the  Marquis  De  Nadaillac, 
Member  of  the  French  Academy. 
P^RT  I.  "  The  Mound  Builders." 
PART  II.  "  The  Cliff  Dwellers." 

SCIENTIFIC  THEORY  AND  CATHOLIC  DOCTRINE. 

by  Rev.  J.  A.  Zahm,  C.  S.  C. 

SUMMER  SCHOOL  ESSAYS 
VOLUME  I. 

"  Buddhism  and  Christianity,"  by  Mgr.  De  Harlez. 

"Christian  Science  and  Faith  Cure,"  by  Dr.  T.  P.  Hart. 

"  Growth  of  Reading  Circles,"  by  Rev. T. McMillan,  C.S. P. 

"  Reading  Circle  Work,"  by  Rev.  W.  J.  Dalton. 

"  Church  Music."  by  Rev.  R.  Fuhr,  O.  S.  F. 

"  Catholic  Literary  Societies,"  by  Miss  K.  E.  Conway. 

"  Historical  Criticism,"  by  Rev.  C.  De  Smedt,  S.  J. 

SUMMER  SCHOOL  ESSAYS. 

VOLUME  II. 
"  The  Spanish  Inquisition,"  by  Rev.  J.  F.  Nugent. 
"  Savonarola,"  by  Conde  B.  Pallen,  Ph.  D. 
"  Joan  of  Arc,"  by  J.  W.  Wilstach. 
"  Magna  Charta,"  by  Prof.  J.  G.  Ewing. 
"  Missionary  Explorers  of  the  Northwest," 

by  Judge  W.  L.  Kelly 

CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

by  Rev.  J.  J.  Conway,  S.  J. 

SOCIAL  PROBLEMS. 

by  Rev.  Morgan  M.  Sheedy. 

Cloth,  Price  Per  Volume,  Fifty  Cents. 


CATHOLIC  SUMMER  AND  WINTER  SCHOOL  LIBPARV 


LECTURES 


ON 


LITERATURE 


ENGLISH, 
FRENCH  AND  SPANISH 


BY 
RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON 


AKRON,  O. 

D.  H.  McBRIDE  &  CO. 

1897 


?N3l 

3L& 


Copyright.  1897 

BY 

D.  H.  McBRIDE  &  CO. 


TO 
MY  WIFE 

FRANCES  MANSFIELD 

FROM 

YOUNGEST   MANHOOD  TO   FAR  ADVANCED   AGE 

MY  CONSTANT  COMRADE 

AND  COUNSELOR 

Obiit  Ftbruarii  XXIV.,  MDCCCXCVII./\y 


PREFACE 


^TThese  Lectures,  read  at  the  Convent 
^^^  of  Notre  Dame  and  the  Peabodv 
Institute  of  Baltimore  before  classes 
of  advanced  students,  were,  and  this 
collection  is,  intended  mainly  for  those 
who  have  leisure  for  cursory,  rather 
than  prolonged  and  critical  study  of 
the  matters  herein  discussed. 

R.  M.  J. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

English  Literature 7 

French  Literature 117 

Spanish  Literature 201 


English  Literature. 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE 


Ancient,  Mediaeval  and  Early  English. 

Drama:— Nicholas  Udall:  "  Ralph  Royster  Doy- 
ster;"  John  Still:  "Gammer  Gurton's  Nee- 
dle;" Sackville:  "  Gorboduc." 

/£THE  drama  was  originally  of  reli- 
^-'^  gious  institution.  When  the  heroic 
ages  had  passed,  and  peace  had  afforded 
opportunities  for  improvement  upon  the 
lyrical  and  epic  forms  of  poetry,  then 
arose  the  dramatic  in  which,  instead  of 
mere  narration,  the  principal  characters 
were  brought  upon  the  stage,  and  made 
to  represent  in  their  own  persons  the 
great  actions  of  their  lives.  The  only 
proper  subjects  of  tragedy,  which  is 
the  oldest  form  of  dramatic  poetry, 
were  incidents  of  an  unhappy  nature, 
which  had  occurred  in  the  careers  of 
great  men   who  had  been   unfortunate; 

(9) 


10  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

and  not  so  much  for  their  own  crimes 
as  in  obedience  to  the  decrees  of  fate. 
The  heroes  of  ancient  drama  were 
men  of  many  virtues  and  of  great  rev- 
erence for  the  gods.  For  instance,  the 
"  CEdipus"  of  Sophocles  was  exposed 
to  death  in  his  infancy  in  order  to  pre- 
vent the  fulfillment  of  the  prophecy 
that  he  must  one  day  be  the  slayer  of 
his  father.  The  accomplishment  of  the 
prophecy  was  without  guilt  upon  his 
part,  but  yet  was  followed  by  remorse 
and  other  misfortunes  that  were  nat- 
ural. His  career  was  made  by  the  poet 
to  inculcate  a  great  religious  truth, — 
that  the  decrees  of  fate  are  inevitable. 
The  drama  was  enacted  upon  occa- 
sions of  public  worship.  Its  enactment 
was  preluded  l>v  solemn  sacrifices,  and 
prayers  were  made  for  the  blessing  of 
the  gods.  The  places  where  the  scenes 
were  enacted  were  usually  in  the  open 
air  and  in  places  which  either  com- 
manded the  view  of  a  temple,  or  some 
grand  object  of  nature,  which  might 
assist  in  lifting  the  mind  of  the  spec- 
tators in  harmony  with  the  solemn  serv- 
ice   of    this    religious    ceremony.     One 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  \{ 

of  the  most  imposing  scenes  that  could 
be  witnessed  was  this  regnacting  in 
these  sacred  places  the  events  which 
taught  the  mutability  of  human  for- 
tunes  and   the   value   of  constant  piety. 

The  father  of  Greek  tragedy,  JEs- 
chvlus.  had  for  his  only  aim  the  incul- 
cation of  moral  duties.  He  was  a  most 
earnest  preacher.  He  taught  k-  rever- 
ence for  the  gods,  respect  for  the  sanc- 
tity of  an  oath  and  of  the  conjugal  tie. 
inflexible  justice,  moderation  in  pros- 
perity, patience  under  suffering,  de- 
voted love  to  country,  generous  hospi- 
tality ;"  and  he  taught  that  no  amount 
of  suffering  could  dispense  with  the  ob- 
ligation to  perform  every  duty  to  God 
and  to  men.  Accompanying  the  action 
of  the  principal  characters  was  a  cho- 
rus, whose  business  it  was  to  make  the 
proper  reflections  upon  that  action.  As 
this  chorus  was  ever  in  the  play,  it 
must  follow  that  there  never  could  be 
any  change  of  scene  or  of  place. 

Therefore,  the  ancient  drama  had 
what  was  called  the  three  unities — of 
time,  place,  and  action;  that  is,  one  set 
of  actions  that  transpired  at  one  place, 


12  LECTURES  OX  LITERATURE. 

and  during  the  lapse  of  two  or  three 
hours,  was  represented.  There  was  no 
variety,  and  could  be  none,  on  account 
of  the  continued  presence  of  the  chorus. 
If  the  same  person  had  performed  other 
actions  and  suffered  other  pains  on  dif- 
ferent occasions,  and  in  different  places, 
another  play  must  be  written  to  repre- 
sent them.  Thus  we  have  the  "Prome- 
theus Bound "  of  ^Eschylus,  and  the 
"  Prometheus  Unbound."  Then  we 
have  two  plays  of  the  CEdipus  of  Sopho- 
cles, the  "  CEdipus  Tyrannus,"  and  the 
"  CEdipus  Coloneus."  Such  was  the 
origin  of  Greek  tragedy. 

In  the  hands  of  the  great  masters 
of  Athens  it  had  a  powerful  influence 
upon  the  thousands  who  attended  its 
exhibitions,  in  stimulating  them  to  all 
their  obligations,  especially  the  worship 
of  the  gods.  The  long  continuance  of 
peace,  and  the  growth  of  follies  and 
vices  which  increased  civilization  brings 
along  with  riches  and  luxury,  after- 
wards introduced  the  comedy,  which 
bore  no  higher  relation  to  tragedy  than 
the  modern  burlesque  opera  bears  to 
the  legitimate. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  13 

The  pleasure  that  mankind  derives 
from  tragedy  is  very  peculiar  and  very 
interesting.  It  is  not  from  the  suffering 
which  we  witness,  although  we  shed 
tears  at  the  sight,  but  it  is  because  we 
then  see  manhood  in  its  highest  aspect, 
when  it  is  struggling  with  misfortune, 
and  in  these  struggles  perfecting  its 
being.  Tragedy,  therefore,  teaches  us 
what  our  holy  religion  teaches  us  also — 
that  suffering  is  a  great  blessing.  The 
man  who  never  suffers  never  becomes  a 
man  in  the  highest  sense. 

Let  us  pass  from  this  ancient  drama 
to  that  of  the  Middle  Ages,  or,  as  we  may 
term  it,  the  Christian  Drama.  The  in- 
fluence which  the  establishment  of  Chris- 
tianity on  the  ruins  of  Paganism  exerted 
upon  the  general  literature  was  felt 
especially  by  the  drama  which  more 
than  any  other  kind  represented  the  old 
religious  ideas.  Yet  theatrical  represen- 
tations were  too  abundant  sources  of 
entertainment  for  the  people  to  be 
entirely  deprived  of  them.  For  the  lack 
of  an  equivalent  they  would  attend  the 
exhibitions  of  the  old  tragedies,  and 
would  weep  like  their  forefathers  wept 


14  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

at  the  misfortunes  of  the  great  men  in 
Grecian  story. 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  fourth 
century,  Gregory,  surnamed  Nazian- 
zenus,  came  to  the  Archiepiscopal  throne 
of  Constantinople,  a  city  which  then 
held  much  of  the  last  remains  of  Gre- 
cian letters  and  ideas.  With  Greek 
literature  he  was  thoroughly  acquainted. 
He  had  been  educated  severally  in  the 
schools  of  Caesarea  in  Cappadocia,  Cae- 
sarea  Philippi,  Alexandria,  and,  lastly, 
Athens.  Besides  being  a  great  preacher, 
he  was  a  poet.  Knowing  full  well  the 
religious  tendencies  of  the  heathen 
drama,  and  desirous  to  substitute  such 
entertainments  as  would  harmonize  with 
Christianity,  he  first  banished  from  the 
stage  the  old  tragedies  and  substituted 
those  which  tended  to  inculcate  Chris- 
tian principles.  As  the  ancient  tragedies 
had  for  their  subjects  the  sufferings  of 
the  heathen  heroes  and  demi-sfods,  so 
his  took  for  theirs  the  sufferings  of 
Christ  and  the  ancient  saints  and  mar- 
tyrs. There  is  yet  extant  one  of  these 
tragedies  called  "The  Passion  of 
Christ."     Following  the  requisition   of 


ENG  L  IS  H  L I  TEH  ATI  'E'E.  \  5 

the  old  tragedies,  which  had  their  chorus, 
he  substituted  Christian  hymns,  likewise 
of  his  own  composition. 

These  Christian  plays  obtained  gen- 
erally among  the  Christians  of  the  East. 
It  was  many  centuries  before  they 
found  their  way  amongst  the  western 
nations  of  Europe.  When  the  Latin  lan- 
guage became  that  of  the  Church,  they 
began  to  be  produced  in  Latin,  and 
though  they  were  known  in  Italy,  and 
much  later  in  Germany  and  France,  it 
was  not  until  the  beginning  of  the 
fifteenth  century  that  the  English  be- 
came much  acquainted  with  them. 
Their  first  knowledge  appears  to  have 
been  acquired  at  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance   which  sat    from    1414  to  1418. 

The  English  bishops  were  highly  en- 
tertained by  these  plays  which,  during 
the  intervals  of  the  sittings  of  the  Coun- 
cil, were  exhibited  by  the  ecclesiastics 
of  the  East.  They  were  called  '-Mir- 
acle Plays,"  and  were  not  only  com- 
posed by  the  ecclesiastics,  but  acted  by 
them  entirely.  A  layman  would  no 
more  have  dared  to  appear  in  them, 
than    he     would    have     undertaken    to 


It5  LECTURES  OS  LITERATURE. 

preach  the  Gospel  or  administer  the 
holy  sacraments.  Following-  the  ex- 
ample of  their  Eastern  brethren,  the 
English  ecclesiastics  began  to  introduce 
them  into  England.  As  elsewhere, 
they  were  purely  religious  and  per- 
formed nowhere  except  in  the  churches 
and  monasteries. 

But  all  peoples  must  have  some 
sport,  however  firmly  set  in  their  reli- 
gious opinions.  On  the  occasions  of 
great  concourses  of  men,  especially  at 
the  great  fairs  held  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  men  would  go  in  crowds  to  see 
the  jugglers  and  other  mountebanks. 
Then  it  was  that,  to  counterbalance 
these  shows,  the  ecclesiastics  began  to 
introduce  into  their  plays  the  sportive 
element.  The  funny  character  in  their 
plays  was  the  Devil.  He  always  wore 
a  long  tail,  and  the  ancient  saints  used 
to  worry  that  and  his  other  members 
in  many  ways,  when  the  Devil  would 
roar  with  pain  and  the  audience  would 
roar  with   delight. 

These  Miracle  Plavs  after  some  time 
took  on  the  allegorical  form  which  they 
had    borrowed    from    the   French.     In- 


ENGLrsir  LITERATURE.  17 

stead  of  persons  in  Bible  history  they 
represented  abstract  qualities.  In  these 
the  sportive  character  was  called  the 
Vice.  Yet  the  Devil  was  so  interesting, 
and  there  was  such  satisfaction  in  wit- 
nessing any  discomfiture  that  could 
come  to  him,  that  even  in  these  allegori- 
cal plays  he  was  often  brought  in  with 
the  Vice,  and  the  audience  had  two 
clowns  instead  of  one.  Their  tricks 
played  upon  each  other  constituted  the 
laughing  part  of  these  dramas.  They 
took  the  name  of  "  Mysteries,"  and 
were  still  enacted  in  the  churches. 

Afterwards,  and  because  the  univer- 
sities were  upon  religious  foundations, 
they  began  to  be  enacted  in  them.  We 
have  an  allusion  to  this  habit  in 
Shakespeare's  "Hamlet."  In  them 
events  of  Bible  history  were  represented 
with  exact  circumstantiality,  the  monks 
not  feeling  at  liberty  to  vaiy  them, 
Many  grossnesses  must  therefore  occur 
in  them.  They  at  last  became  so  ob- 
jectionable that,  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIII.,  Bishop  Bonner  prohibited  them 
being  represented  in  the  churches. 
Still,  the  chorister   boys    in  St.  Paul's 

L.L.— 2 


18  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

continued  to  act  them  in  that  Cathe- 
dral, especially  at  the  feast  of  the  Boy 
Bishop  on  St.  Nicholas'  Day. 

Such  was  the  ancient  English  "  Sacred 
Comedy."  The  habit  of  producing  it 
on  Sunday  continued  long,  and  as  late 
even  as  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  these 
Christian  boys  of  St.  Paul's  acted  upon 
Sundays. 

What  a  blessing  are  tears  !  Tears, 
at  once  the  witness  and  the  reliever  of 
the  burden,  both  of  sorrow  and  of 
pleasure.  It  is  natural  to  a  healthy 
man,  healthy  in  body  and  mind,  to  shed 
tears,  not  only  for  his  own  griefs,  not 
only  in  sympathy  with  those  of  others, 
but  in  the  midst  of  the  excesses  of  his 
own  joys  or  in  mirthful  contemplation 
of  those  absurd  conjunctures  in  his  own 
and  others'  fortunes  which  he  recognizes 
as  incapable  of  producing  harmful  re- 
sults. The  subtle  influences  in  the 
human  heart  which  call  forth  these 
emanations  for  consoling  the  one  and 
subduing  the  excesses  of  the  other  in 
these  apparently  so  widely  different 
conditions  are  yet  closely  blended  to- 
gether in  the  great  depths  of  our  being. 


ENGLISH  LITER  A  TUBE.  19 

So  it  is  that  weeping  is  sometimes  fol- 
lowed by  smiling,  and  laughter  by 
sighing. 

He  therefore  who  undertakes  to  rep- 
resent.this  human  life,  if  he  be  a  true 
artist,  will  study  both  these  elements 
in  man's  being  with  equal  care  and 
fidelity.  Among  the  ancient  dramatists, 
if  such  indeed  were  the  gift,  it  cer- 
tainly was  not  the  habit  to  employ  it. 
Greek  tragedy  must  necessarily  be 
wholly  serious.  Originating  in  reli- 
gion, designed  to  inculcate  fear  of  the 
gods,  especially  of  fate,  it  had  no  place 
for  scenes  except  the  solemn,  the  aw- 
ful, and  the  terrific.  Its  achievements 
were  indescribably  great,  and  they 
stimulated  to  the  practice  of  highest 
virtues. 

Greek  comedy  had  also,  in  its  first 
intentions,  elements  of  the  religious. 
It  is  curious  indeed  to  consider  how 
some  of  the  ancient  dramatic  scenes  in 
honor  of  Bacchus  should  have  been 
induced  by  religious  motives.  Yet 
comedy  in  the  main  among  the  refined 
Greeks  seemed  to  have  had  for  its 
object    to  make     a      contrast — and    a 


20  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

pleasing  contrast  —  with  the  painful 
solemnities  of  tragedy. 

Socrates  used  to  maintain  that  a 
good  writer  of  tragedies  ought  also  to 
be  able  to  write  comedies  ;  and  in  an 
argument  with  Aristophanes,  the  latter 
was  convinced  that  the  wise  man  was 
right  in  his  opinions.  For  "  all  oppo- 
sites,"  was  the  argument,  "  can  be  fully 
understood  only  by  and  through  each 
other.  Consequently,  we  can  know 
what  is  serious  only  by  knowing  also 
what  is  laughable  and  ludicrous." 

But  it  was  reserved  for  time  long 
after  to  fully  eliminate  this  idea,  and 
represent  the  serious  and  the  sportive 
in  their  sequence  in  common  life. 

We  should  remember  that  the  Greek 
drama  dealt  not  with  common  life. 
Neither  tragedy  nor  comedy.  Tragedy 
dealt  with  the  demi-gods  and  legend- 
ary heroes  and  heroines,  with  CEdipus 
and  Orestes,  with  Alcestis  and  Medea. 
So  Greek  comedy,  for  want  of  real 
heroes,  dealt  with  prominent  names  in 
political  life  who  would  fain  be  re- 
garded as  heroes,  but  who  were  not  ; 
and  these  were  exhibited  in  contrast  with 


ENGLISH  LITER  A  TURE.  21 

the  truly  great  of  a  better  age.  Greek 
comedy  therefore  was  satire.  It  had 
the  keenest  wit  ;  but  it  was  devoid  of 
humor  which  is  the  chiefest  element  in 
the  comic  muse.  Many  a  roaring  laugh 
was  raised  over  the  merciless  scourg- 
ings  of  petty  politicians  by  Aristoph- 
anes, but  it  was  a  laugh  of  contempt 
and  anger  which  was  harm  instead  of 
benefit  to  the  laugher.  That  healthy 
English  mind  in  that  healthy  English 
body,  so  fond  of  English  beef  and  Eng- 
lish ale,  must  have  some  substantial 
human  sport  such  as  was  to  come  from 
everyday  life  and  character,  leaving 
out  the  contemplation  of  the  per- 
sonage whom  it  required  so  great  a 
stretch  of  the  imagination  to  disasso- 
ciate from  the  thoughts  not  only  seri- 
ous but  terrific.  It  certainly  was 
natural  to  expect  that  the  first  modifi- 
cations of  the  sacred  comedy  would  be 
made  within  the  circle  of  existing  dra- 
matic writers —  that  is,  the  ecclesiastics. 
So  here  we  have  the  new  departure 
inaugurated  by  Nicholas  Uclall,  head 
master  successively  of  Eton  and  West- 
minster Schools,  and  Canon  of  Windsor. 


22  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

They  were  good  times  when  the  boys 
and  ushers  went  nutting  in  Windsor 
forest,  and  as  good  almost  when  in 
those  long  winter  nights  that  left,  over 
and  above  sleeping  and  study  hours, 
abundance  of  time  for  other  things, 
they  used  to  enact  the  Latin  comedies 
which  the  head  master  had  composed. 
Here  we  find  the  beginnings  of  modern 
comedy  writing  in  England;  for  these 
Latin  plays  designed  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  school  boys,  in  recess  from 
studies,  were  neither  after  the  order  of 
the  Mysteries  and  Moralities  nor  were 
they  merely  imitations  of  the  ancient 
classic  comedies!  It  was  but  a  step 
further,  as  Mr.  Silas  Wegg  would  say, 
to  "  drop  into  "  English. 

In  "Ralph  Royster  Doyster"  we  be- 
gin to  see  the  development  of  the  idea 
of  representing  both  the  serious  and  the 
sportive,  and  the  setting  off  each  by  the 
other  as  they  are  set  off  in  actual  life. 
In  this  play,  of  course,  the  sportive 
must  and  does  largely  prevail;  but 
there  are  many  passages  of  serious  dia- 
logue, and  these  dispose  the  mind  to 
enjoy    with    greater    zest     the     comic. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  23 

Matthew  Merrigreke  is  all  the  more  en- 
tertaininor  because  of  the  seriousness  in 
other  characters.  The  play,  so  to  call 
it,  has  been  considered  of  much  value 
in  addition  to  its  praise  of  being  the 
first  English  comedy,  for  the  acquaint- 
ance it  imparts  with  London  society 
three  hundred  years  ago.  A  good 
move  this  on  the  part  of  the  clergy, 
who  were  the  monopolists  in  literary, 
especially  dramatic  humor,  to  allow  a 
bit  of  fun  outside  of  the  churches,  and 
at  least  for  this  purpose,  supplant  the 
Devil,  and  substitute  honest  English 
jokers.  There  is  much  spirit  in  the 
scene  wherein  the  three  working  girls, 
Madge  Mumblecrust,  spinner,  Tibet 
Talkative,  seamstress,  and  Arnot  Sly- 
face,  knitter,  while  at  their  tasks,  are 
joined  by  Ralph  Royster  Doyster,  and 
after  some  disputing,  the  dialogue  con- 
tinues thus  : 

Arnot— Let  all  those  matters  pass,  and  we  three 
sing  a  song. 
So  shall  we  pleasantly  both  the  time  be- 
guile now. 
And  eke  dispatch  all  our  work,  ere  we  can 
tell  how. 
Tibet — I  shrew  them  that  say  nay,  and  that  shall 
not  he  I. 


24  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

Madge — And  I  am  well  content. 
Tibi  /—Sing  on,  then,  by  and  by. 
[All.]        Pipe,  merry  Arnot ; 
Trilla,  Trllla,  Trillarie. 

Work  Tibet,  work  Arnot,  work  Margerie  ; 

Let  us  see  who  will  win  the  victory. 

Pipe,  merry  Arnot ; 
Trilla,  Trilla,  Trillarie. 
What  Tibet,  what  Arnot,  what  Margerie ; 
Ye  sleep,  but  we  do  not,  that  shall  wo  try  ; 
Your  fingers  be  dumb,  our  work  will  not  be 

Pipe,  merry  Arnot ; 

Trilla,  Trilla,  Trillarie. 
Now  Tibet,  now  Arnot,  now  Margerie, 
Now  whippet  apace  for  the  Mysterie; 
But  it  will  not  be,  our  mouth  is  so  dry. 
Pipe,  merry  Arnot ; 

Trilla,  Trilla,  Trillarie. 
When  Tibet,  when  Arnot,  when  Margerie? 
I  will  not  —  I  cannot  —  no  more  can  I ; 
Then  give  we  all  over,  and  there  let  it  die. 

Not  long  afterwards  another  church- 
man, yet  higher  in  dignity  and  office, 
appeared.  Twenty  years  ago  we  had  a 
head  master  and  a  canon;  now  we  are 
to  have  a  Doctor  of  Divinity  and  a 
Bishop.  John  Still,  Lady  Margaret's 
Professor  of  Divinity,  Prebend  of  West- 
minster, Master  of  St.  John's  and  Trin- 
ity Colleges  at  Cambridge,  Archdeacon 
of  Sudbury  and  Bishop  of  Bath  and 
Wells,  once  fell  into  a  humorous  vein, 
and  for  a  preacher  showed  an  enormous 
familiarity    with   the    lowly    in    English 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  25 

society;  and  as  hearty  an  appreciation 
of  their  drolleries  as  any  who  ever 
aspired  to  wear  a  gown,  much  less  the 
lawn  sleeves  and  the  mitre. 

"  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle  "  is  in- 
deed thoroughly  English,  its  humor  is  of 
the  English  kind,  broad,  hearty,  and  un- 
restrained. The  author  understood  well 
the  fun  to  be  gotten  from  the  absurd 
exaggerations  that  persons  in  lower 
classes  make  of  insignificant  matters. 
It  was  a  great  time  in  the  village  when 
it  was  ascertained  that  Gammer  Gurton's 
needle  was  not  to  be  found.  Gammer 
Gurton's  needle  gone!  clean  gone!  ! 
Perhaps  it  was  lost.  Lost!  The  idea! 
As  well  suppose  the  King  had  lost  the 
crown  jewels.  No  losing  in  the  case; 
and  the  question  is — who  stole  it?  She 
will  not  suspect  her  servants  Hodge, 
Tyb,  and  Cocke,  nor  Doctor  Rat,  nor 
Diccon.  Now  the  gossip,  Dame  Chat, 
has  been  much  about  the  house  of  late; 
and  it  was  no  difficult  thing  to  observe 
that  she  envied  in  her  heart  the  posses- 
sion of  that  needle.  The  unsuspecting 
owner  had  often  exhibited  it  with  par- 
donable pride,  and  in  blind  confidence. 


26  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

In  her  grief  and  anger  for  the  loss,  she 
was  led  through  Uiccon  the  Bedlam  to 
suspect  Dame  Chat  of  the  theft.  These 
two  things  taken  together,  this  sequence 
of  startling  events,  the  loss  of  the  nee- 
dle, that  loss  magnified  into  a  theft,  and 
the  theft  charged  upon  Dame  Chat,  up- 
set that  little  village.  Business  was 
suspended,  all  took  sides  and  joined  in 
the  hunt.  What  it  all  would  have  gotten 
to  no  human  foresight  could  have  deter- 
mined, had  not  an  unguarded  movement 
of  Hodge  solved  the  mystery.  Yes,  it 
was  not  Dame  Chat,  it  was  Hodge,  in 
whose  breeches,  while  Gammer  was 
mending  them,  the  needle  had  been  left. 
In  an  awkward  motion  of  the  lad,  the 
missing  needle  stuck  into  his  flesh,  and 
he  had  to  roar  at  its  discovery. 

If  the  boys  at  Eton  enjoyed  the  en- 
acting of  "  Ralph  Royster  Doyster," 
how  must  the  bigger  boys  of  Christ's 
College  at  Cambridge,  where  it  was 
first  presented,  have  applauded  "  Gam- 
mer Gurton's  Needle"?  How  much 
better  for  such  purpose  this  than  the 
"  Birds"  of  Aristophanes,  the  "  Captive" 
of  Plautus,  or  the  "  Andrea  "  of  Teren- 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  27 

tius;  not  to  have  to  pick  out  the  fun, 
what  little  there  was,  from  beneath 
Latin  and  Greek  roots  and  radicals, 
but  hear  it  pouring  forth,  in  homely 
vernacular  form,  in  scenes  of  everyday 
home  life  ;  or  than  the  Mysteries  and 
Moralities,  whose  humor  was  partly 
fanciful,  and  drawn  forth,  strangely 
enough,  from  the  most  serious  of  all 
human  concerns.  Many  scenes,  indeed, 
are  grossly  indelicate  ;  but  delicacy 
was  not  a  part  of  society  then  in  any 
single  one  of  its  conditions.  But  there 
are  others  that  are  decidedly  above 
buffoonery.  The  famous  "  Chanson  a, 
Boire "  was  greatly  admired,  and  was 
regarded  as  very  far  the  best  that  had 
yet  appeared  in   English: 

"I  cannot  eat  but  little  moat."  etc. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  study  the 
development  of  the  British  drama  from 
these  rude  originals,  and  how  it  was 
made  to  depend,  not  upon  the  talents 
and  tastes  of  the  dramatist,  but  upon 
the  likings  and  dislikings  of  those  who 
went  to  the  theatres.  Almost  contem- 
porary with  our  first  comedy  appeared 
our  first  tragedy,   the    "  Gorboduc "  of 


28  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

Sackville.  A  noble  effort  this  to  re- 
produce the  tragic  muse  of  Greece. 
But  the  English  playgoers  were  wont 
to  sleep  at  this  stately  solemn  narra- 
tive of  the  misfortunes  of  the  great. 
Not  that  they  had  neither  eyes  nor 
tears  for  tragic  events,  or  were  without 
pity  for  those  who  had  been  in  great 
estate : 

"  Of  hem  that  stode  in  grete  prosperite, 
And  be  fallen  out  of  her  high  degree," 

but  they  insisted  upon  seeing  the 
blood  and  hearing  the  thunder  ;  they 
preferred  being  present  at  the  combat 
to  hearing  it  described.  The  counsel 
of  Horace  to  the  Pisos  would  have  been 
wasted  upon  that  broad -hearted  and 
not  refined  English  public.  He  who 
had  wondered  how  the  Romans  of 
the  foretime  had  admired  the  rudeness 
of  Plautus,  and  was  shocked  at  the 
bare  idea  of  Medea  murdering,  "  cor- 
am populis"  her  own  and  the  chil- 
dren of  Jason,  would  never  have  been 
seen,  had  he  lived  at  that  time,  in 
the  pit  of  the  Globe  or  Blackfriars; 
for  that  public  demanded  the  rep- 
resentation   before    their    eyes    of    the 


ENGLISH  LITER  A  TUB  E.  29 

scenes  of  blood  ;  and  then,  when  that 
was  over,  to  turn  from  them  to  scenes 
of  fun  and  frolic.  If  Progne  were  to 
be  changed  into  a  bird,  and  Cadmus 
into  a  snake,  they  insisted  upon  seeing 
how  the  thing  was  done,  then  they 
were  ready  to  listen  to  Plautine  jokes, 
and  as  these  were  broader  their  shouts 
were  louder  and  heartier. 

"  An  action,"  says  Mr.  Hallam, 
"  passing  visibly  on  the  stage,  instead 
of  a  frigid  narrative,  a  copious  inter- 
mixture of  comic  buffoonery  with  the 
gravest  story,  were  requisites  with 
which  no  English  audience  would  dis- 
pense." The  wits  coming  after,  who 
sought  fame  or  livelihood,  must  con- 
form henceforth  to  these  demands. 
Fond  as  it  was  to  shed  the  tears  of 
pity,  it  was  needful  to  that  audience  to 
wipe  them  away  in  time,  and  give  an 
outlet  to  those  of  hilarity.  These  two 
great  wants  of  the  human  heart,  so 
nearly  connected,  so  necessi  ry  to  each 
other,  these  English  audiences  were 
the  first  to  assert  in  that  alternate  se- 
quence in  which  they  prevail  in  daily 
life. 


II. 

Interludes  :— John  Hetwood  :  "  The  Four  P's ; 
"The  Fair  Maid  of  the  Exchange."  John  Lyi.y: 
"Euphues;"  "Mother  Bornbie;"  "Endymion;" 
"  Sappho  and  Phaon ; "  "  Midas:  "  "Alexander  and 
Campaspe." 

Before  considering  the  English 
drama,  such  as  it  speedily  became  after 
the  appearance  of  these  rude  essays, 
mention  should  be  made  of  the  "  Inter- 
lude "  which  came  into  being  about  the 
time  of  the  passing  of  the  Moralities, 
designed  to  fill  the  interstices  of  elab- 
orate festivities  at  court.  The  beginner 
of  these  was  John  Heywood,  a  native  of 
London,  for  some  time  a  student  at 
Pembroke  College,  who  was  afterwards 
employed  as  a  manager  in  court  cere- 
monials. Despite  a  service  which  now 
seems  rather  trivial,  even  if  entirely  re- 
spectable, he  was  a  man  of  considerable 
ability    and    courageous    integrity.      A 

(30) 


ENGLISH  LITER  A  TUBE.  31 

staunch  Catholic,  he  without  hesitation 
put  aside  the  temptation  to  give  up  his 
faith  at  the  death  of  Mary  Tudor,  and 
went  into  exile,  dying  at  Mechlin  in 
1565.  Some  of  his  productions  are 
"  The  Merrie  Plays  between  John,  the 
husband,  Tyb,  his  wife,  and  Sir  John, 
the  priest;  "  the  "  Play  of  the  Weather;" 
and  the  "Four  P's."  Of  these  the  best 
known  is  the  last,  which,  although  not  a 
drama  in  its  just  sense,  is  an  exceed- 
ingly interesting  dialogue. 

The  four  P's  are  the  Pedlar,  the 
Pardoner,  the  Palmer,  and  the  Poticary. 
An  animated  controversy  goes  on  for 
some  time  between  the  Pardoner  and  the 
Palmer  in  the  midst  of  which  the  Poti- 
cary appears  upon  the  scene  and  thinks 
it  worth  while  to  vaunt  his  own  vocation 
as  a  curer  of  bodies  along  with  the  claims 
of  the  disputants  as  curers  of  souls. 
Presently  the  Pedlar  joins  the  company, 
and,  after  showing  his  wares,  listens  to 
the  dispute  of  the  other  three,  and  at 
last  undertakes  to  settle  things  by  a 
proposal  which  to  him  seems  reasonable. 
This  was  that  every  one  of  the  three 
should   tell  a   lie,   a  feat  to  which  he. 


32  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

from  much  experience,  was  fully  ade- 
quate, and  he  would  decide  as  to  which 
was  the  biggest.      Said  he: 

"  Now  have  I  found  one  mastery 
That  ye  can  do  indifferently, 
And  is  neither  selling  nor  buying 
But  even  on  very  lying. 
And  all  ye  three  can  lie  as  well 
As  can  the  falsest  devil  in  hell, 
And  though  afore,  ye  heard  me  grudge 
In  greater  matters,  to  he  your  judge, 
Yet  in  lying  I  can  some  skill 
And  if  I  shall  be  judge,  I  will ; 
And  which  of  you  telle th  most  marvel, 
And  most  unlikest  to  be  true, 
Shall  most  prevail,  whatever  ensue." 

The  proposal  is  accepted  and  the  Par- 
doner and  the  Poticary  each  tells  what 
must  have  been  admitted  to  be  lies  of 
good  size;  but  the  Palmer  after  some 
commenting  upon  the  rescue  of  a  woman 
from  the  lower  pit  in  the  Pardoner's 
effort,  spoke  as  follows: 

"  And  this  I  would  ye  should  understand, 
I  have  seen  women  five  hundred  thousand. 
And  oft  with  them  have  long  time  tarried; 
Yet  in  all  places  where  I  have  been, 
Of  all  the  women  that  I  have  seen, 
I  never  saw  or  knew  in  my  conscience, 
Any  woman  out  of  patience." 

A  lie  so  palpable,  so  vast,  even  the 
other  conspiritors  admitted  to  be  far 
beyond    their    several   conceptions  and 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  33 

they  did  not  appeal  from  the  judgment 
of  the  umpire. 

From  the  lyrical  poems  of  Heywood  I 
quote  the  following  : 

THE  FAIR  MAID  OF  THE  EXCHANGE. 

Go,  pretty  birds; 
Ye  little  birds  that  sit  and  sing 
Amidst  the  shady  valleys, 
And  see  how  Phillis  sweetly  walks 
Within  her  garden  alleys: 
Go,  pretty  birds,  about  her  bower, 
Sing  pretty  birds,  she  may  not  lower; 
Ah  me!  methinks  I  see  her  frown. 
i*e  pretty  wantons,  warble. 

Go,  tell  her  through  your  chirping  bills, 

As  you  by  me  are  bidden, 

To  her  is  only  known  my  love, 

Which  from  the  world  is  hidden. 

Go,  pretty  birds,  and  tell  her  so: 

For  still  methinks  I  see  her  frown. 

Ye  pretty  wantons,  warble. 

Go,  tune  your  voices'  harmony, 
And  sing  I  am  her  lover; 
Strain  loud  and  sweet  that  every  note 
With  sweet  content  may  move  her. 
And  she  that  hath  the  sweetest  voice, 
Tell  her  I  will  not  change  my  choice, 
Yet  still,  methinks  I  see  her  frown. 
Ye  pretty  wantons,  warble. 

Oh  fly!  make  haste!  see,  see,  she  falls 
Into  a  pretty  slumber, 
Sing  round  about  her  rosy  bed, 
That  waking  she  may  wonder; 
Say  to  her,  'tis  your  lover  true; 
That  sendeth  love  to  you,  to  you; 
And  when  you  hear  her  kind  reply, 
Return  with  pleasant  warblings. 
L.L.— 3 


34  LECTURES  ON  LITER  A  TURE. 

Shortly  after  Heywood  appeared  John 
Lyly,  who,  an  Oxford  Master  of  Arts, 
for  some  years  was  the  leader  among 
English  wits.  His  first  work  was 
"  Euphues,  the  Anatomy  of  Wit,"  and 
its  quick  successor,  "  Euphues  in  Eng- 
land," a  collection  of  essays,  tales,  etc., 
upon  character,  social  conduct,  religion, 
philosophy,  and  other  subjects.  These 
are  connected  with  a  slender  story  of 
Euphues,  a  youth  of  Athens,  who,  com- 
ing to  the  city  of  Naples,  formed  an 
acquaintance  with  a  youth,  Philantus, 
and  Eubulus,  an  old  man.  It  is  curious 
to  recall  how  immensely  popular  these 
books  were,  and  how  extensive  was 
their  influence  upon  English  speech. 
Euphuism  ran  through  several  years, 
giving  tone  to  very  much  of  English 
prose  writings.  Its  turgid  language 
and  affected  conceits  are  frequently  to 
be  noted  even  in  the  writings  of  Shake- 
speare 

The  author  is  mentioned  in  this  con- 
nection because  of  his  dramas.  His 
most  earnest  ambition  was  to  be  made 
Master  of  the  Revels  at  the  court  of 
Elizabeth,   and   though   he  never  sue- 


ENGLISH  LITER  A  TURE.  35 

ceeded  he  long  continued  writing 
dramas  and  masques,  ever  hoping  for 
promotion.  Most  of  his  plays  were  on 
classical  fables  and  traditions,  nearly 
all  being  intended  to  personify  in  one 
form  or  another  the  glorious  queen. 
Below  these  is  "  Mother  Bombie,"  an 
attempt  to  bring  together  for  the  pur- 
poses of  contrast  the  different  manners 
of  common  speech  among  the  higher 
and  lower  classes.  As  we  would  sus- 
pect from  the  author  of  "  Euphues,"  the 
former  was  too  high  and  the  latter  too 
low.  The  others  are  far  superior.  In 
"  Endymion,"  is  told  the  story  of  that 
youth's  desertion  of  Tellus,  the  maid  to 
whom  he  was  contracted,  for  the  god- 
dess Cynthia,  who,  although  not  insen- 
sible to  his  passion,  yet  is  too  far  ex- 
alted above  him  to  respond  fully  to  it. 
This  was  a  compliment  to  the  queen, 
who,  although  occasionally  indulging 
tender  emotions  for  one  of  her  number- 
less lovers,  never  entertains  the  idea  of 
lifting  them  to  her  level.  In  "  Sappho 
and  Phaon "  is  another  love  between 
high  and  low,  with  a  like  ending. 
Phaon,  the  young  fisherman,  had  such 


36  LECTURES  OX  LITERATURE. 

marvelous  beauty  as  to  attract  Sappho, 
the  Virgin  Queen  of  Sicily.  In  this 
there  is  much  of  the  delicacy  afterwards 
appearing  in  several  of  Shakespeare's 
comedies.  This  is  observed  in  the  fol- 
lowing colloquy  occurring  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  lover  carrying  some  herbs  to 
soothe  the  queen  into  sleep  : 

Sappho— What  herbs  have  you  brought,  Phaon  i 

Phaon— Such  as  will  make  you  sleep,  madam, 
though  they  cannot  make  me  slumber. 

Sappho— Why,  how  can  you  cure  me  when  you 
cannot  remedy  yourself  ? 

Phao7i—Yes,  madam,  the  causes  are  contrary. 
For  it  is  only  a  dryness  in  your  brains  that  keepeth 
you  from  rest.    But  — 

Sappho—  But  what? 

Phaon— Nothing  —  but  mine  is  not  so. 

Sappho — Nay,  then  I  despair  of  help,  if  our  dis- 
ease be  not  all  one. 

Phaon — I  would  our  diseases  were  all  one. 

Sapj>ho — It  goes  hard  with  the  patient  when  the 
physician  is  desperate. 

Phaon — Yet,  Medea  made  the  ever  waking  drag- 
on to  snort,  when  she,  poor  soul,  could  not  wink. 

Sappho — Medea  was  in  love  and  nothing  could 
cause  her  rest  but  Jason. 

Phaon — Indeed  I  know  of  no  herb  to  make  lovers 
sleep,  but  heartsease;  which,  because  it  groweth 
high,  I  cannot  reach  for. 

Sappho— For  whom  ? 

Phaon— For  such  as  love. 

Sapjyho— It  stoopeth  very  low,  and  I  can  never 
stoop  to  it,  that  — 

Phaon— That  what? 

Sappho—  That  I  may  gather  it;  but  why  do  you 
sigh  so,  Phaon  V 

Phaon—  It  is  mine  use,  madam. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  37 

Sappho— It  will  do  you  harm,  and  me,  too,  for  I 
never  hear  one  sigh,  but  I  must  sigh  also. 

Phaon— It  were  best  then  that  your  ladyship 
give  me  leave  to  be  gone ;  for  I  can  but  sigh. 

Sappho— Nay,  stay,  for  now  I  begin  to  sigh,  I 
shall  not  leave  though  you  be  gone.  But  what  do 
you  think  best  for  your  sighing,  to  take  it  away  1 

Phaon — Yew,  madam. 

Sappho — Me  ? 

Phaon — No,  madam ;  yew  of  the  tree. 

Sappho— Then  will  I  love  yew  the  better.  And 
indeed,  it  would  make  me  sleep,  too;  therefore  all 
other  simples  set  aside.  I  will  simply  use  only  yew. 

Phaon — Do,  madam,  for  I  think  nothing  in  the 
world  so  good  as  yew. 

Sappho— Farewell,  for  this  time. 

The  assumption  of  the  name  Sap- 
pho was  wholly  arbitrary,  and  also  of 
Phaon  the  lover  of  the  unhappy  Sap- 
pho of  Lesbos. 

"  Midas "  is  founded  upon  the  mis- 
fortunes of  a  prince  of  that  name  in 
Phrygia.  It  ought  to  have  seemed 
that  he  had  had  enough  already  of 
caution  against  too  great  familiarity 
with  the  gods.  Having  once  enter- 
tained Bacchus  when  brought  to  him 
in  a  time  of  misfortune,  and  asked  as 
a  reward  that  whatever  he  touched 
might  become  gold,  he  was  horrified 
to  find  that  even  his  food  became  thus 
transformed.  Being  about  to  famish, 
and   imploring  the    god    to   take    back 


38  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

the  gift,  he  was  ordered  to  wash  in  the 
waters  of  the  Pactolus,  and  hence  the 
sands  of  that  famous  river  were  turned 
into  gold.  But  Midas  after  this  had 
the  temerity  to  say  that  Pan  was  a 
better  musician  than  Apollo.  For 
this  insult,  Apollo  gave  him  the  ears 
of  an  ass  as  the  most  suitable  punish- 
ment for  his  ignorance  and  impudence. 
Midas  used  every  possible  precaution 
in  order  to  conceal  the  disgrace  from 
his  subjects.  But  one  of  his  servants 
happened  one  day  to  see  his  ears. 
Finding  it  impossible  to  refrain  from 
speaking  of  the  case,  and  yet  dreading 
the  resentment  of  his  king  if  it  should 
be  published,  he  made  a  hole  in  the 
ground  and  whispered  the  secret  with- 
in it,  and  then  he  covered  the  hole 
with  dirt  again.  But  scandal  will  not 
stay  even  in  the  ground.  Whoever 
is  acquainted  with  any  scandalous 
thinof  which  he  does  not  wish  to  be 
generally  known,  cannot,  it  seems,  safely 
tell  it  even  to  a  hole  in  the  ground. 
It  came  to  pass  afterwards,  that  some 
reeds  grew  upon  the  place  where  the 
servant    had    buried    his    secret ;    and 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  39 

when  they  were  agitated  by  the  wind 
they  whispered,  "  Midas  has  the  ears 
of  an  ass." 

"  Alexander  and  Campaspe  "  is  an- 
other very  entertaining  drama  upon 
classical  subjects.  The  subject  of  this 
is  the  passion  of  Apelles  for  Cam- 
paspe, one  of  the  many  loves  of  Alex- 
ander the  Great.  Apelles,  of  Cos, 
the  most  celebrated  of  all  the  portrait 
painters  of  Greece,  who  was  alone  al- 
lowed by  Alexander  to  paint  him,  was 
required  by  the  king  to  paint  a  por- 
trait of  Campaspe.  Such  was  the  mar- 
velous beauty  of  this  woman  that  the 
painter  fell  in  love  with  her  while  he 
was  making  her  portrait.  Campaspe, 
it  seems,  preferred  to  reign  supreme 
and  alone  in  the  heart  of  Apelles 
than  occupy  a  subordinate  and  not  very 
respectable  place  in  that  of  Alexander. 
The  king  is  made  acquainted  with  the 
fact  of  their  mutual  love,  and  allows 
them  to  marry.  Campaspe  must  have 
been  exceedingly  beautiful,  for  she 
is  said  to  have  been  the  original  of 
the  celebrated  picture  of  the  Venus 
Anadyomene. 


40  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

The  beginning  of  the  courtship  be- 
tween the  artist  and  his  subject  is 
told  in  words  showing  much  art.  Be- 
fore commencing  with  his  work  he 
conducts  her  around  his  studio  show- 
ing her  the  leading  pieces  upon  the 
walls.  Before  one  Campaspe,  pausing, 
asks: 

Campaspe— Whose  counterfeit  is  this,  Apelles? 

Apelles— This  is  Venus,  the  goddess  of  love. 

Campaspe— What?  Be  there  also  loving  goddes- 
ses? 

Aprlles—  This  is  she  that  hath  power  to  com- 
mand the  very  affections  of  the  heart. 

Campaspe — How  is  she  hired  —  by  prayers,  by 
sacrifice  or  bribes? 

Apelles— By  prayer,  sacrifice  and  bribes. 

Campaspe — What  prayer? 

Apelles — Vows  irrevocable. 

Campaspe— What  sacrifice? 

Apelles  —  Hearts  ever  sighing,  never  dissem- 
bling. 

Campaspe— What  bribes? 

Apelles— Roses  and  kisses ;  but  were  you  never 
in  love? 

Campaspe— No,  nor  love  in  me. 

Apelles— Then  have  you  injured  many. 

Campaspe— How  so? 

Apelles— Because  you  have  been  loved  of  many. 

Campaspe— Flattered  perchance  of  some. 

Apelles— It  is  not  possible  that  a  face  so  fair  and 
a  wit  so  sharp,  both  without  comparison,  should 
not  be  apt  to  love. 

Campaspe— If  you  begin  to  tie  up  your  tongue 
with  cunning,  I  pray  you  dip  your  pencil  in  colors 
and  fall  to  that  you  must  do,  not  to  that  you 
would  do. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  41 

I  give  the  songs  of  the  two  gods;  de- 
cision upon  which  wrought  such  unex- 
pected punishment  on  the  umpire: 

APOLLO. 

A  SONG  OF  DAPHNE  TO  THE  LUTE. 

My  Daphne's  hair  is  twisted  gold, 

Bright  stars  apiece  her  eyes  doe  hold. 

My  Daphne's  brow  enthrones  the  graces, 

My  Daphne's  beauty  staines  all  faces. 

On  Daphne's  cheeks  grow  rose  and  cherry, 

On  Daphne's  lip  a  sweeter  berry, 

Daphne's  snowy  hand  but  touched  does  melt 

And  then  no  heavenlier  warmth  is  felt. 

My  Daphne's  voice  tunes  all  the  spheres, 

My  Daphne's  musick  charmes  all  ears, 

Fond  am  I  thus  to  sing  her  prayse 

These  glories  now  are  turned  to  bays. 

SYRINX. 
THE  SONG  OF  PAN. 

Pan's  Syrinx  was  a  girl  indeed, 
Though  now  shee's  turned  into  a  reed, 
From  that  deare  reed  Pan's  pipe  does  come, 
A  pipe  that  strikes  Apollo  dumbe; 
Nor  flute,  nor  lute,  nor  gitterne  can 
So  chant  it  as  the  pipe  of  Pan ; 
Cross-gathered  swains,  and  dearie  girles, 
With  faces  smug  and  round  as  pearles, 
When  Pan's  shrill  pipe  begins  to  play, 
With  dancing  weare  out  night  and  day. 
The  bag-pipes  drone  his  humlays  by, 
When  Pan  sounds  up  his  minstrelsie. 

Lyly  was  one  of  the  many  who  depend 
on  princes'  favors,  of  all  support  the 
most  miserable   and  followed  by  most 


42  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

sickening  disappointments.  The  last  of 
numerous  appeals  to  the  court  of  Eliz- 
abeth has,  among  others,  these  words: 

"Thirteen  years  your  Majesty's  serv- 
ant, but  yet  nothing!  Seventy  friends 
that  though  they  say  they  will  be  sure, 
I  find  them  sure  to  be  slow!  A  thousand 
hopes,  but  all  nothing!  A  hundred 
pounds,  but  yet  nothing!  Thus  casting 
up  the  inventory  of  my  friends,  hopes, 
promises  and  times,  the  summa  totalis 
amounteth  to  just  nothing.  .  .  .  The 
last  and  the  least,  that,  if  I  be  born  to 
have  nothing,  I  may  have  a  probation 
to  pay  nothing;  which  suit  is  like  his, 
that,  having  followed  the  court  ten 
years,  for  recompense  of  his  services, 
committed  a  robbery,  and  took  it  out  in 
a  pardon." 

The  misery  in  the  case  of  such  a  man 
could  hardly  have  been  put  more  strik- 
ingly. 


III. 

George  Peele:  "  CEnone's  Complaint."  Rob- 
ert Greene:  List  of  His  Works,  "Samela." 
Thomas  Nash:  "Pierce  Penniless;"  "Isle  of 
Dogs ;  "  "  The  Tragedy  of  Dido ;  "  "  Summer's  Last 
Will  and  Testament."  John  Ford:  "The  Lover's 
Melancholy ;  "  "  The  Broken  Heart ;  "  Love's 
Sacrifice;"   "  Perkin  Warbeck." 

The  men  who  succeeded  Lyly, 
although  well  born  and  scholarly,  made 
careers  not  to  be  envied  by  the  most 
lowly  in  that  generation.  It  was  a  gen- 
eration wherein  coarseness  ruled  even  in 
highest  places.  Of  the  early  English, 
Taine  speaks  as  of  a  "den  of  lions." 
Not  so  very  many  centuries  back  of  Eliz- 
abeth English  parents  sold  their  sons 
and  daughters  into  slavery.  The  ap- 
pearance of  some  of  these  Angli  in  the 
mart  of  Rome  suggested  to  the  great 
Gregory  the  sending  of  a  missionary  to 
the  island  whence  came  captives  of  such 
beauty  that  the  Pope  called  them  An- 
geli. 

To  Queen  Elizabeth  the  wits  of 
the    time  paid   compliments   of  absurd 

(43) 


44  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

exaltation  which  she  accepted  and  then 
let  them  starve.  Even  yet  it  seems 
strange  that  such  a  woman  could  have 
been  so  glorified  by  such  as  knelt  in 
abject  servility  at  her  feet. 

Some  of  these  wits  I  must  mention 
before  the  greater  names  that  succeeded 
them: 

First  stands  George  Peele,  a  native 
of  Devonshire,  a  student  of  (then  Broad- 
gates  Hall,  now)  Pembroke  College, 
Oxford,  where  he  took  the  Master's 
degree  in  1579.  Of  his  many  plays 
only  five  were  preserved.  He  and  his 
set  did  not  seek  places  at  court,  but 
chose  the  haunts  of  theatres,  taverns  and 
the  society  of  such  as  frequented  them, 
whose  manners  and  habits  it  would  not 
be  very  easy  to  exaggerate.  Of  that 
set  he  ranks,  in  the  opinion  of  critics, 
next  to  Marlowe.  A  specimen  of  his 
lyrical  pieces  is  given  from  the  "Ar- 
raignment of  Paris,"  entitled: 

CENONE'S  COMPLAINT. 

Melpomene,  the  muse  of  tragic  songs, 
With  mournful  tunes,  in  stole  of  dismal  hue 
Assist  a  silly  nymph  to  wail  her  woe, 
And  leave  thy  lusty  company  behind. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  45 

Thou  luckless  wreath !  becomes  not  me  to  wear 
The  poplar  tree,  for  triumph  of  my  love; 
Then  is  my  joy,  my  pride  of  love  is  left, 
Be  thou  unclothed  of  thy  lovely  greene. 

And  in  thy  leaves  my  fortunes  written  be, 
And  then  some  gentle  wind  let  blow  abroad. 
That  all  the  world  may  see  how  false  of  love 
False  Paris  hath  to  his  CEnone  been. 

All  readers  will  recognize  CEnone 
as  the  nymph  who  was  deserted  by 
Paris  after  his  summons  to  decide  the 
contest  among  the  goddesses  regarding 
Discord's  golden  apple. 

Following  Peele  is  Robert  Greene, 
who  was  born  at  Norwich,  and  took 
his  Master's  degree  at  St.  John's  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  in  1583.  After  trav- 
eling for  some  time  on  the  Continent, 
he  settled  in  London,  became  a  wit, 
married,  became  father  of  a  child  and 
then  left  his  wife,  assigning  as  the 
reason  that  she  had  undertaken  the 
vain  task  of  winning  him  from  his 
profligate  habits.  Later  in  life  he  wrote 
at  some  length  a  paper  confessing  many 
of  his  bad  actions  to  this  lady  and  to 
others  who  had  befriended  or  endeavored 
to  befriend  him.  He  had  many  alter- 
ations of  fortune    during  the  irregular 


46  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

life  led  in  the  company  of  low  asso- 
ciates. In  a  paper  called  "The  Re- 
pentance of  Robert  Greene,"  he  recites 
with  circumstantiality  some  of  the 
enormities  committed  by  him  and  un- 
dertook to  give,  for  what  it  was  worth, 
to  his  companions,  Peele,  Lodge,  Nash, 
and  others,  some  monitory  counsel. 
There  is  something  touching  in  the 
appeal  made,  when  upon  his  dying 
bed,  to  his  wife,  whom  for  years  he 
had  not  met,  not  for  pardon  of  him- 
self, but  for  indemnification  of  the  poor 
shoemaker's  wife,  who  had  tended  him 
in  her  house  in  his  last  sickness,  for 
the  expenses  to  which  she  had  been 
subjected  on  his  behalf.  It  was  said, 
with  perhaps  little  foundation,  that  he 
was  a  relative  of  Shakespeare,  and  that 
it  was  through  his  influence  that  the 
latter  came  from  Stratford  to  seek  his 
fortune  in    London. 

A  great  number  of  Greene's  works, 
like  those  of  Peele,  perished  in  the 
great  fire  of  London.  Here  is  a  list  of 
a  portion:  "Orlando  Furioso  ;  "  "A 
Looking  Glass  for  London  and  Eng- 
land ;"  "  Friar  Bacon   and  Friar  Bun- 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  47 

gay  ;"  "  Alphonsus,  king  of  Arragon;" 
"  James  the  Fourth  ;"  "  George  a 
Greene,  the  Pinner  of  Wakefield;" 
"Ballad  of  the  Jolly  Pinner  of  Wake- 
field, with  Robin  Hood,  Scarlet  and 
John,  etc."  His  novels,  such  as  Do- 
rastus  and  Fawnia,"  are  poor  speci- 
mens, after  the   style   of  Euphues. 

At  his  death  the  poor  woman  who  had 
rendered  his  last  service,  placed  upon 
his  head  a  wreath  of  bays,  and  had  him 
buried  with  decency  according  to  her 
means. 

The  beautiful  short  poem  which 
herein  follows  indicates  what  mi«fht 
have  been  done  by  this  gifted  and 
cultured  man  had  he  not  been  led 
into  the  tortuous  ways  of  dissipation, 
and  earnestly  cultivated  the  genius 
with   which  he   had   been   born  : 

SAMELA. 

Like  to  Diana  in  her  summer  weed, 

Girt  with  a  crimson  robe  of  brightest  dye, 

Goes  fair  Samela. 
Whiter  than  be  the  flocks  that  straggling  feed, 
When,  washed  by  Arethusa,  faint  they  lie, 

Is  fair  Samela. 
As  fair  Aurora  in  her  morning  grey, 
Decked  with  the  ruddy  glisten  of  her  love, 

Is  fair  Samela. 
Like  lovely  Thetis  on  a  calmed  day, 


48  LECTURES  ON  LITER  A  TURE. 

Whence  her  brightness  Neptune's  fancy  move, 

Shines  fair  Samela. 
Her  tresses  gold,  her  eyes  like  glassy  streams, 
Her  teeth  are  pearl,  the  breasts  are  ivory, 

Of  fair  Samela. 
Her  cheeks,  like    rose    and    lily,  yield    forth 

gleams, 
Her  brows,  bright  arches  framed  of  ebony; 

Thus  fair  Samela. 
Passeth  fair  Venus  in  her  bravest  hue; 
And  Juno  in  the  shew  of  majesty, 

For  she's  Samela. 
Pallas  in  wit,  all  three,  if  you  will  view, 
For  beauty,  wit,  and  matchless  dignity, 

Yield  to  Samela. 


Of  this  set  was  Thomas  Nash,  native 
of  Suffolk  and  graduate  of  St.  John's 
College.  Like  the  foregoing,  he  led  a 
life  of  debauchery  which  occasionally, 
like  Greene's,  had  reliefs  of  penitence 
and  honest  short-lived  endeavors  to 
amend.  A  born  satirist,  with  a  temper 
irascible  and  combative,  he  was  not 
one  to  feel  the  sweet  influences  which 
humor,  that  is  always  generous  and 
compassionate,  delights  to  exert.  He 
was  an  almost  perfect  master  of  invec- 
tive, which,  at  the  instigation  of  the 
bishops,  Whitgift  and  Bancroft,  he 
employed  in  the  once  famous  Martin 
Mar-Prelate  Controversy.  His  papers 
on   this   line  got  for  him  the  titles  of 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  49 

"  Gallant  Juvenal,"  and  "  English 
Aretino.  It  was  a  friendly  act  to  de- 
fend the  memory  of  his  friend  Greene 
from  the  attacks  of  Gabriel  Harvey, 
the  Cambridge  scholar.  The  papers  of 
these  combatants  became  at  last  so 
coarsely  abusive  that  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  interposed  with  an  order 
for  the  ending  of  the  controversy  and 
the  destruction  of  all  the  pamphlets 
that  had  been  put  forth  by  them. 

Like  his  companions,  he  was  often 
driven  into  extremities  from  the  want 
of  necessary  things.  In  a  period  of 
special  need  he  wrote  "  Pierce  Penni- 
less ;  his  Supplications  to  the  Devil,"  in 
which  in  most  pathetic  terms  are  ex- 
posed some  of  the  sufferings  to  which 
authors  were  subjected. 

His  reputation  as  a  dramatist  is 
founded  upon  three  plays.  The  first, 
"The  Isle  of  Dogs,"  is  a  satire  so  bit- 
ing that,  regarded  as  purely  political, 
it  caused  his  arrest  and  several  months ' 
imprisonment.  Another  is  "  The  Trag- 
edy of  Dido,  Queene  of  Carthage,"  the 
best  part  of  which,  however,  has  been 
supposed   to   be  the  work   s>f  Marlowe. 

L.L.— 4 


50  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

The  other  is  "  A  Pleasant  Coniedye," 
called  "  Summer's  Last  Will  and  Testa- 
ment," a  comedy  with  little  or  no 
plot  for  entertainment  of  the  court. 
The  name  was  taken  from  Will  Sum- 
mer, the  Fool  of  Henry  VIII.  It  opens 
with  a  fling  at  Euphuism,  which  had 
fallen  into  decay  as  rapidly  as  it  had 
arisen.  The  principal  events  of  the 
past  year  are  reviewed  ;  and  all  ends 
with  ascriptions  of  praise  for  every 
good  thing  to  the  most  powerful,  most 
august,  most  beautiful,  most  gracious 
Queen  Elizabeth.  The  following  lyric 
is  from  "  Summer's  Last  Will  and  Tes- 
tament :" 

SPRING. 

Spring,   the   sweet   Spring,  is  the  year's  pleasant 

king. 
Then  blooms  each  thing,  then  maids  dance  in  a 

ring. 
Cold  doth  not  sting,  the  pretty  birds  do  sing: 
Cuckoo,  jug,  jug,  pu  we,  to  witta  woo. 

The  palm  and  May  make  country  houses  gay, 
Lambs  frisk  and  play,  the  shepherds  pipe  all  day, 
And  we  hear  aye  birds  tune  this  merry  lay : 
Cuckoo,  jug,  jug,  pu,  we,  to  witta  woo. 

The  fields  breathe  sweet,  the  daisies  kiss  our  feet, 
Young  lovers  meet,  old  wives  a  sunning  sit, 
In  every  street  these  tunes  our  ears  do  greet: 
Cuckoo,  jug,  jug,  pu,  we,  to  witta  woo. 
Spring,  the  sweet  spring. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  51 

A  brief  space  must  be  given  to  John 
Ford,  who,  while  keeping  mainly  to  his 
vocation  of  lawyer  of  the  Middle  Temple, 
gave  to  the  muses  somewhat  of  his  time 
when  out  of  the  engrossments  of  busi- 
ness. Some  of  his  plays  are  "  The 
Lover's  Melancholy;  "  "  The  Sun's  Dar- 
ling; "  "The  Broken  Heart;"  "Love's 
Sacrifice;"  and  "  Perkin  Warbeck." 
Critics  have  differed  widely  in  their 
judgment  of  Ford.  But  all  admit  that 
he  lacked  humor,  that  essential  of  comic 
drama.  Hallam,  in  his  "  Introduction  to 
the  Literature  of  Europe,"  says  of  him: 
"  Love,  and  love  in  quiet  or  sorrow,  is 
almost  exclusively  the  emotion  he  por- 
trays. No  heroic  passion,  no  sober 
dignity,  will  be  found  in  his  tragedies. 
But  he  connects  his  story  well  and  with- 
out confusion;  his  scenes  are  often  highly 
wrought  and  effective;  his  characters, 
with  no  striking  novelty,  are  well  sup- 
ported; he  is  seldom  extravagant  or  re- 
gardless of  probability."  The  following 
lyric  is  from  "  The  Broken  Heart." 

BEAUTY  BEYOND  THE  REACH  OF  ART. 
Can  you  paint  a  thought?  or  number 
Every  fancy  in  a  slumber? 
Can  you  count  soft  minutes  roving 


52  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

From  a  dial's  point  by  moving? 
Can  you  grasp  a  sigh  ?  or  lastly, 
Rob  a  virgin's  honor  chastely  1 
No,  oh  no!  yet  you  may 
Sooner  do  both  that  and  this, 
This  and  that  and  never  miss. 
Than  by  any  praise  display 
Beauty's  beauty;  such  a  glory. 
As  beyond  all  fate,  all  story. 
All  arms,  all  arts. 
All  loves,  all  hearts, 
Greater  than  those,  or  they, 
Do,  shall,  and  must  obey. 


IV. 

Christopher  Marlowe  :  "  The  Passionate 
Shepherd;"  " Tambourlaine:"  "Dr.  Faustus;" 
"  The  Jew  of  Malta;"  "  Edward  II." 

Among  the  pals  of  the  poor  prof- 
ligates just  mentioned  was  one  who 
was  born  for  far  greater  things,  whose 
actions  done  during  an  extremely 
brief  and  unhappy  career  indicate  what 
were  expected  at  the  time  of  his  pre- 
mature end.  Far  above  Lyly,  and  indeed 
above  all  the  other  dramatists  before 
Shakespeare,  and  contemporary  with  him, 
was  Christopher  Marlowe.  Of  humble 
birth  in  the  town  of  Canterbury,  he  was 
helped  to  a  good  education  at  Cambridge, 
where  he  took  his  second  degree  in  1587. 
Before  this  he  had  written  the  Tragedy 
of  "  Tambourlaine  the  Great,"  and  it 
had  been  acted  upon  the  stage. 

The  boldness  with  which  Marlowe  left 
the  old  rules  of  the  drama  and  broke 
forth  into  new,  introducing  blank  verse, 

(53) 


54  I  El  'TUBES  ON  L1TERA  TURK. 

and  treating  classical  themes  after 
romantic  turns,  was  at  once  and  abun- 
dantly successful.  He  has  been  styled 
the  father  of  the  British  drama.  Had  he 
lived  it  is  not  easy  to  say  to  what  splen- 
did heights  he  would  not  have  attained. 
The  paraphrase  on  the  old  legend  of  Hero 
and  Leander,  and  others  on  Ovid  and 
.  Lucan,  showed  genius  near  to  the  high- 
est; so  did  that  Shepherd's  song,  which 
together  with  the  reply  of  the  Shepherd- 
ess by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  are  two  of 
the  best  known  and  most  admired  among 
poems  of  their  class. 

THE   PASSIONATE   SHEPHERD   TO  HIS  LOVE. 

Come  with  me  and  be  my  love, 
And  we  will  all  the  pleasures  prove 
That  valleys,  groves,  and  hills  and  fields, 
Woods  or  steepy  mountain  yields. 

And  we  will  sit  upon  the  rocks, 
Seeing  the  shepherds  feed  their  flocks 
By  shallow  rivers,  to  whose  falls 
Melodious  birds  sing  madrigals. 

And  I  will  make  thee  beds  of  roses, 
And  a  thousand  fragrant  posies; 
A  cap  of  flowers  and  a  kirtle 
Embroidered  all  with  leaves  of  myrtle; 

A  gown  made  of  the  finest  wool, 
Which  from  our  pretty  lambs  we  pull; 
Fair-lined  slippers  for  the.  cold, 
With  buckles  of  the  purest  gold ; 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  55 

A  belt  of  .straw  and  ivy  buds, 
With  coral  clasps  and  amber  studs; 
And  if  these  pleasures  may  thee  move, 
Come  live  with  me,  and  be  my  love. 

The  shepherd  swains  shall  dance  and  sing, 
For  thy  delight,  each  May  morning; 
If  these  delights  thy  mind  may  move, 
Then  live  with  me,  and  be  my  love. 

I  quote  one  passage  from  Tambour- 
laine  on  Beauty,  which  shows  how  ex- 
quisitely sensitive  was  the  mind  of  this 
wayward  youth  on  that  great  theme  of 
the  poet.  It  is  taken  from  a  soliloquy 
of  Tambourlaine  while  thinking  of  his 
absent  love,  Xenocrate  : 

"'What  is  beauty,'  sayeth  my  sufferings  then? 
If  all  the  pens  that  ever  poets  held, 
Had  fed  the  feeling  of  their  masters'   thoughts, 
And  every  sweetness   that  inspired  their  hearts, 
Their  minds  and  muses  on  admired  themes; 
If  all  the  heavenly  quintessence  they  still 
From  their  immortal  flowers  of  poesy, 
Wherein,  as  in  a  mirror  we  perceive 
The  highest  reaches  of  a  human  wit; 
If  these  had  made  one  poem's  period 
And  all  combined  in  beauty's  worthiness, 
Yet  should  there  hover  in  their  restless  heads 
One  thought,  one  grace,  one  wonder,  at  the  least, 
Which  into  words  no  virtue  can  digest." 

Many  of  Marlowe's  writings  were 
lost.  Those  that  have  been  preserved 
are  of  several  kinds,  in  all  of  which  he 
was  excellent.     But  his  greatest  talent 


56  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

was  for  tragedy.  We  notice  the  three 
leading:  "  Doctor  Faustus,"  the  "  Jew 
of  Malta,"  and  "Edward  II."  The 
ideas  on  which  the  tragedy  of  "Faus- 
tus" is  founded  are  to  be  met  with 
in  the  literature  of  all  ages.  The 
oldest  type  of  this  character  that 
we  are  acquainted  with  is  Job.  It 
is  the  idea  of  a  man  who  has  for 
a  certain  season  been  given  up  to 
the  control  of  evil.  That  takes  differ- 
ent forms  among  different  writers.  In 
Job  we  have  a  good  man  surrendered 
for  a  limited  time  to  the  control  of  Sa- 
tan, without  any  misconduct  of  his  own, 
but  merely  for  the  sake  of  being 
tempted.  In  other  cases,  a  daring  man 
is  made  to  covenant  with  the  Devil  for 
unlimited  power  and  knowledge,  and 
opportunities  for  pleasure,  for  which  he 
is  to  give  his  soul  in  exchange.  This  is 
the  case  in  the  Faustus  of  Marlowe. 

In  "  Faustus  "  the  ambition  of  the 
leading  character  of  the  play  was  for 
knowledge.  One  of  the  superstitions 
of  the  Middle  Ages  was  that  there  were 
certain  occult  sciences  which  were  to 
be  known  onlv  by  those  who  had  made 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  57 

acquaintance  with  supernatural  agen- 
cies. These  were  all  considered  to  be 
evil ;  and  thus  while  men  feared  those 
who  had  attained  to  such  familiarity, 
at  the  same  time  they  regarded  them 
as  destined  to  be  wholly  lost  to  hap- 
piness in  the  next  world.  Such  a 
character  as  Faustus  was  well  suited  to 
the  daring  intellect  of  such  a  man  as 
Marlowe,  and  he  has  drawn  him  well. 
There  are  passages  of  very  great 
power  and  a  few  of  much  beauty  in 
this  play.  The  final  catastrophe  when 
the  season  of  his  greatness  is  over, 
and  the  devils  come  at  the  appointed 
time  to  remove  him  from  the  earth,  is 
truly   terrific. 

The  following  is  a  striking  passage, 
being  an  address  to  the  ghost  of 
Helen,  which,  summoned  by  Mephis- 
topheles,  appeared  before  him: 

"  Was  this  the  face  that  launched  a  thousand  ships 
And  burned  the  topless  towers  of  Ilium? 
Sweet  Helen,  make  me  immortal  with  a  kiss! 
I  will  be  Paris,  and  for  love  of  thee, 
Instead  of  Troy  shall  Wittenburg  be  sacked; 
And  I  will  combat  with  weak  Menelaus, 
And  wear  thy  colors  on  my  plumed  crest: 

"  Yea,  I  will  wound  Achilles  in  the  heel, 
And  then  return  to  Helen  for  a  kiss. 


58  LECTURES  OX  LITERATURE. 

Oh,  thou  art  fairer  than  the  evening  air, 
Clad  in  the  beauty  of  a  thousand  stars; 
Brighter  art  thou  than  flaming  Jupiter 
When  he  appeared  to  hapless  Semele; 
More  lovely  than  the  monarch  of  the  sky, 
In  wanton  Arethusa's  azured  arms." 

The  "Jew  of  Malta"  is  fully  equal 
to  "  Doctor  Faustus."  It  is  a  striking 
illustration  of  the  prejudice  and  the 
hatred  in  which  the  Israelites  had  been 
held  for  centuries  by  the  Christian 
world.  Barabas  is  the  greatest  of  the 
millionaires  of  Malta,  and  no  man  could 
love  money  more  eagerly,  or  talk  of  it 
with  a  greater  zest.  The  pride  of 
wealth  is  well  expressed  in  the  follow- 
ing soliloquy  after  receiving  the  re- 
turns of  sales  in  the  far  East  of  his 
Spanish  wines   and   oils   of   Greece: 

"Fie!  what  a  trouble  'tis  to  count  this  trash! 
Well  fare  the  Arabians  who  so  richly  pay 
The  things  they  traffic  for  with  wedge  of  gold, 
Whereof  a  man  may  easily  in  a  day 
Tell  that  which  may  maintain  him  all  his  life. 
The  needy  groom  that  never  fingered  groat. 
Would  make  a  miracle  of  thus  much  coin; 
But   he   whose   steel-barred  coffers  are  crammed 

full. 
And  he  who  all  his  lifetime  hath  been  tired 
Wearying  his  fingers'  ends  with  telling  it, 
Would  in  his  age  be  loth  to  labour  so; 
And  for  a  pound  to  sweat  himself  to  death. 
Give  me  the  merchants  of  the  Indian  mines 
That  trade  in  metals  of  the  purest  mould; 


ENG I.  tSH  LITER  A  TURE  59 

The  wealthy  Moor  that,  in  the  eastern  rocks, 

Without  control  can  pick  his  riches  up, 

And  in  his  house  heap  pearls  like  pebble  stones 

Receive  them  free,  and  sell  them  by  the  weight: 

Bags  of  fiery  opals,  sapphires,  amethysts, 

Jacinths,  hard  topaz  grass-green  emeralds, 

Beauteous  rubies,  sparkling  diamonds, 

And  seld-seen  costly  stones  of  so  great  price; 

As  one  of  them  indifferently  rated, 

And  of  a  carat  of  this  quantity 

May  serve  in  peril  of  calamity 

To  ransom  great  kings  from  captivity. 

This  is  the  ware  wherein  consists  my  wealth; 

And   thus,  methinks,  should    men    of   judgment 

frame, 
This  means  of  traffic  from  the  vulgar  trade 
And,  as  their  wealth  increaseth,  so  inclose 
Infinite  riches  in  a  little  room." 


While  he  is  enjoying  such  thoughts, 
and  the  power  which  they  impart  to  in- 
flict suffering  upon  the  Christians,  Malta 
is  invaded  by  the  Turks  under  Selim 
Calymath,  and  the  Jews  are  required  to 
contribute  half  their  wealth  to  the  na- 
tional defense.  In  addition  to  this, 
under  pretense  that  the  calamity  of  war 
has  been  sent  because  of  their  too  great 
toleration  of  the  unbelieving  race,  the 
house  of  Barabas  is  seized  and  con- 
verted into  a  nunnery.  In  this  house 
is  concealed  immense  treasures  of  which 
the  authorities  have  never  known.  In 
his   anguish    Barabas   thinks  of   a  plan 


60  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

to  save  this  portion.  He  has  a  young 
daughter,  very  beautiful,  Abigail,  whom 
he  persuades  to  become  a  nun.  She  is 
thus  enabled  to  save  this  portion  of  his 
treasures.  But  in  this  time  Don  Ma- 
thias, one  of  the  Lords,  and  Ludovic,  the 
Governor's  son,  have  fallen  in  love  with 
this  daughter,  who  is  described  as: 

"  A  fair  young  maid,  scarce  fourteen  years  of  age, 
The  sweetest  flower  in  Cytherea's  field, 
Cropt  down  the  pleasures  of  this  fruitful  earth 
And  strangely  metamorphosed  to  a  nun." 

Upon  the  return  of  prosperity,  Abi- 
gail quits  the  convent,  and  falls  in  love 
herself  with  Don  Mathias.  Barabas 
manages  to  bring  about  a  duel  between 
Don  Mathias  and  Ludovic,  in  which 
both  are  killed.  Then  Abigail  becomes 
converted  in  good  faith  to  Christianity, 
and  again  takes  the  veil.  This  event 
causes  as  great  grief  as  was  felt  upon 
the  loss  of  his  treasures.  He  curses  his 
daughter,  and  having  poisoned  her  with 
all  the  inmates  of  the  convent,  he  is 
himself  at  last  brought  to  merited  pun- 
ishment. He  dies  unrelenting  and 
with  horrible  curses  upon  his  lips. 

The    passage    is    very   fine  in  which 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  61 

Barabas  is  described  as  going  to  the 
nunnery  at  night  and  receiving  the 
jewels  which  Abigail  throws  from  her 
window: 

"Thus,  like  the  sad  pressaging  raven,  that  tolls 
The  sick  man's  passport  in  her  hollow  beak, 
And  in  the  shadow  of  the  silent  night 
Doth  shake  contagion  from  her  sable  wings ; 
Vexed  and  tormented  runs  poor  Barabas 
With  fatal  curses  towards  these  Christians. 
The  uncertain  pleasures  of  quick-footed  time 
Have  ta'en  their  flight,  and  left  me  in  despair; 
And  of  my  former  riches  rests  no  more 
But  bare  remembrance,  like  a  soldier's  scar 
That  has  no  further  comfort  for  his  main. 
O,  thou  that  with  a  fiery  pillar  led'st 
The  sons  of  Israel  through  the  dismal  shades. 
Light  Abraham's  offspring,  and  direct  the  hand 
Of  Abigail  this  night,  or  let  the  day 
Turn  to  eternal  darkness  after  this; 
No  sleep  can  fasten  on  my  watchful  eyes, 
Nor  quiet  enter  my  distempered  thoughts 
Till  I  have  answer  of  my  Abigail, 
Now  I  remember  those  old  women's  words, 
Who,  in  my  youth,  would  tell  me  winter's  tales, 
And  speak  of  spirits  and  ghosts  that  hide  by  night 
About  the  place  where  treasure  hath  been  hid; 
And  now  methinks  that  I  am  one  of  those; 
For,  whilst  I  live,  here  lives  my  soul's  sole  hope, 
And  when  I  die,  here  shall  my  spirit  walk." 

But  the  greatest  of  Marlowe's  trag- 
edies is  "  Edward  II."  This  play  is 
founded  upon  the  history  of  that  mon- 
arch, and  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  all 
the  historical  plays.     Edward  began  his 


62  LECT USES  ON  L I TES ATURE. 

career  in  the  midst  of  the  most  favora- 
ble circumstances.  His  heroic  father, 
Edward  First,  had  drawn  to  himself  and 
his  family  the  love  of  a  united  people; 
and  Wales,  that  had  given  birth  to  the 
young  prince  at  time-honored  Caernar- 
von, had  given  in  its  allegiance.  Ed- 
ward had  married  the  beautiful  Isabella 
of  France,  and  thus  secured  the  pros- 
pect of  a  long  career  of  glory  and  hap- 
piness. But  he  had  not  inherited  the 
great  qualities  of  his  father.  With  the 
strange  weakness  which  has  so  often 
visited  kings,  he  attached  himself  to 
worthless  favorites,  Piers  Gaveston  and 
the  Spencers.  Treating  with  neglect 
his  queen,  he  finally  lost  her  love,  and 
in  an  hour,  evil  for  all,  she  gave  her- 
self to  Mortimer.  Then  followed  the 
tragic  things  of  this  unhappy  reign,  the 
sacrifice  of  Gaveston,  and  the  Spencers  ; 
the  dethronement  of  the  king ;  his  mur- 
der by  the  instigation  of  his  queen  and 
her  lover ;  and  then  the  retribution  to 
them  both  at  the  hands  of  the  young 
Edward  the  Third. 

The  tracing  of  all  this  terrible  history 
is  done   in  a  way  which  is  worthy  of 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  63 

the  great  days  of  Grecian  tragedy.  A 
mighty  king  surrounded  by  all  the  cir- 
cumstances which  make  royalty  so  much 
an  object  of  desire  to  men,  being  led 
along  those  high  paths  which  are  so 
dangerous  to  travel;  and  failing  to 
choose  the  best  things,  and  then  gradu- 
ally descending  into  ruin  and  despair; 
all  these  things  are  handled  by  one  who 
shows  that  he  is  a  master  of  his  art. 
Gaveston,  though  wholly  destitute  of 
any  qualifications  of  statesmanship,  yet 
was  of  a  gentle  family  and  courtly  man- 
ners. No  favorite  ever  knew  better  bow 
to  manage  a  weak  master;  and  to  pre- 
serve his  influence  over  him.  We  shall 
see  that  he  understood  human  na- 
ture and  that  he  had  learned  how  to 
employ  it  for  all  the  purposes  with  which 
thoroughly  selfish  courtiers  learn  it. 
Gaveston  had  returned  from  France. 
The  king,  we  know,  had  to  go  over  there 
not  only  to  espouse  Isabella,  to  whom 
he  had  long  been  engaged,  but  for  the 
purpose  of  paying  the  accustomed  hom- 
age to  the  king  of  France  for  the  Duchy 
of  Guienne,  which,  though  a  French 
province,    belonged     to     the     English 


64  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

crown,  Gaveston  is  vain  and  insolent  in 
the  consciousness  of  power.  See  how 
he  proposes  to  entertain  the  king: 

"  I  must  have  wanton  poets,  pleasant  wits, 
Musicians  that  with  touching  of  a  string 
May  draw  the  pliant  king  which  way  I  please, 
Music  and  poetry  is  his  delight; 
Therefore,  I'll  have  Italian  masks  by  night, 
Sweet  speeches,  comedies,  and  pleasing  shows ; 
And  in  the  day,  when  he  shall  walk  abroad, 
Like  sylvan  nymphs  pages  shall  be  clad  ; 
My  men  like  satyrs  grazing  on  the  lawns, 
Shall  with  their  goat-feet  dance  the  antic  lay. 
Sometime  a  lovely  boy  in  Dian's  shape, 
With  hair  that  gilds  the  water  as  it  glides, 
Coronets  of  pearl  above  his  naked  arms, 
And  in  his  sportive  hands  an  olive-tree, 
To  hide  those  parts  which  men  delight  to  see, 
Shall  bathe  him  in  a  spring;  and  there  hard  by 
One  like  Action,  peeping  through  the  grove, 
Shall  by  the  angry  goddess  be  transformed, 
And  running  in  the  likeness  of  a  hart 
By  yelling  hounds  pulled  down,  and  seem  to  die  :— 
Such  things  as  these  best  please  his  majesty." 

Whoever  will  read  this  play  carefully 
will  gather  a  very  accurate  knowledge  of 
the  history  of  that  interesting  reign.  The 
drawing  of  the  characters  of  Mortimer 
and  the  queen  is  most  admirable.  The 
shame  and  grief  of  Isabella  when  she 
discovers  that  with  no  fault  of  her  own 
she  has  lost  the  love  of  her  husband,  are 
well  described.  So  are  the  courage  of 
Mortimer,    his  disgust  for  the  puerility 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  65 

of  a  crowned  king,  both  in  the  senseless 
love  of  a  brainless  favorite  and  in  his 
neglect  of  such  a  queen,  and  then  his 
ambition  for  the  regency  during  the 
minority  of  the  young  heir  apparent. 
It  is  highly  entertaining  how  pity  on 
his  part  and  gratitude  on  hers  gradually 
grow  into  love ;  and  then  how  a  love  so  un- 
lawful leads  to  crimes,  and  renders  them 
cruel  and  remorseless  and  savage.  That 
was  a  most  artful  stroke  of  policy  which, 
after  Gaveston  was  exiled,  caused  him 
to  be  recalled  in  order  that  he  might  be 
murdered.  All  know  the  story  of  his 
execution  by  the  great  Warwick,  a  name 
destined  to  become  famous  in  the  put- 
ting down  and  raising  up  of  kings.  But 
when  he  is  executed,  the  kino-  felt  a 
sense  of  wrong  which  made  it  appear 
for  awhile  that  he  was  going  to  assert 
the  manhood  which  he  ought  to  have 
inherited  from  such  an  ancestry.  Thus 
he  speaks  of  Warwick  and    Mortimer: 

"  By  earth,  the  common  mother  of  us  all, 
By  heaven,  and  all  the  moving  orbs  thereof, 
By  this  right  hand  and  by  my  father's  sword 
And  all  the  honours  'longing  to  the  crown, 
I  will  have  heads  and  lives  for  him  as  many 
As  I  have  manors,  castles,  towns  and  towers! 
Treacherous  Warwick !    Traitorous  Mortimer  I 
L.L.— 5 


66  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

If  I  be  England's  king,  in  lakes  of  gore 

Your  headless  trunks,  your  bodies  will  I  trail, 

That  you  may  drink  your  fill,  and  quaff  in  blood 

And  stain  my  royal  standard  with  the  same; 

That  so  my  bloody  colors  may  suggest 

Remembrance  of  revenge  immortally 

On  your  accursed  traitorous  progeny. 

You  villians  that  have  slain  my  Gaveston." 

Rousing  from  his  pusillanimity  he 
prevails  against  his  enemies  for  awhile, 
and  Mortimer  and  Isabella  take  ref- 
uge in  France.  But  they  return  with 
a  new  army  and  defeat  him.  Let  us 
see  how  he  bewails  his  lot  among  the 
monks  with  whom  he  has  sought  a 
sanctuary,  and  who  he  fears  will  be- 
tray him: 

"  Father,  thy  face  should  harbor  no  deceit, 
Oh,  hadst  thou  ever  been  a  king,  thy  heart 
Buried  deeply  with  sense  of  my  distress, 
Could  not  but  take  compassion  on  my  state; 
Stately  and  proud  in  riches  and  in  train, 
Whilom  I  was  powerful  and  full  of  pomp 
But  what  is  he  whom  rule  and  empery 
Have  not  in  life  and  death  made  miserable? 
Come  Spencer;  come  Baldock,  come  sit  down  by 

me; 
Make  trial  now  of  that  philosophy 
That  in  our  famous  nurseries  of  arts 
Thou  suck'st  from  Plato  and  from  Aristotle. 
Father,  this  life  contemplative  in  heaven; 
Oh!  that  I  might  this  life  in  quiet  lead!" 

The  history  of  the  world  affords  no 
instance   of  a   greater  fall  ;   or  greater 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  (tf 

suffering  of  a  king  than  in  the  case 
of  Edward  the  Second.  The  very 
consciousness  of  guilt  in  Mortimer  and 
and  the  queen  lead  them  to  invent 
the  most  exquisite  pains  of  body  and 
mind  for  him  to  undergo.  With  won- 
derful tenacity  he,  whose  guilty  soul 
dreads  the  eternal  world,  clings  to 
life  in  the  deep  mud  and  water  of 
the  dungeon  of  Killingsworth  Castle, 
where  he  has  been  imprisoned.  The 
horrors  of  that  imprisonment  have  been 
described  in  a  manner  that  no  man 
has  ever  surpassed,  and,  as  for  the 
relation  of  the  end  of  the  miserable 
king,  Charles  Lamb  said  with  truth 
that    in   horror  it    has    no   equal. 

Such  were  some  of  the  things  done 
by  this  young  man  when  at  twenty- 
nine  years  of  age  his  career  came  to 
its  tragic  end.  One  night  in  Deptford, 
a  suburb  of  London,  while  engaged 
at  a  drinking  place  in  strife  with  a 
rival  for  the  love  of  a  low  woman,  he 
was  stabbed  with  his  own  knife  which 
his  opponent,  seizing  his  hand,  turned 
against  him. 

Rude  and  wretched  as  were  lives  of 


68  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

such  men  they  were  made  so  more  by 
accidental  conditions  than  individual 
native  depravity.  History  has  not  yet 
told  a  full  true  tale  of  the  times  of 
her  whom  some  styled  Great  Eliza 
and  others  Good  Queen  Bess.  With 
gifts  and  culture  that  ought  to  have 
made  her  a  model  for  society  to  be 
guided  by,  her  manners  were  oftimes 
as  ooarse  as  her  tyranny  was  auda- 
cious. She  not  only  cursed  and  swore, 
but  cuffed  the  heads  of  noble  men 
and  women,  and,  basest  of  all  indiarni- 
ties  this,  spat  in  their  faces.  She 
loved  poetry  and  poets  and  was  often 
tempted,  even  as  she  repeatedly 
promised  to  reward  them  at  least  for  the 
laudations  they  bestowed  upon  her. 
Expectations  allowed  and  afterwards 
disappointed  broke  the  hearts  of  Spen- 
cer and  Lyly,  and  others,  while  many, 
hopeless  and  defiant,  were  driven  to 
lead  disorderly  lives  and  be  easily  over- 
taken of  death. 

Then  that  English  public  in  the 
defeat  and  persecution  of  the  religious 
faith  of  their  forefathers,  while  devis- 
ing others   of  many  sorts,  partly   from 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  69 

ignorance,  partly  from  fanaticism,  part- 
ly from  envy,  and  much  also  by  a 
hypocrisy  suddenly  and  strangely  born, 
turned  against  these  naturally  gentle 
spirits  that  from  all  time  had  mainly 
constituted  the  teaching  element  in 
states,  and  without  remorse  or  pity  saw 
them  humbled,  cast  out,  living  in  want 
and   falling   into   early   graves. 


V. 

Ben  Jonson:  "Every  Man  in  His  Humour;" 
"Cynthia's  Revels;"  Sejanus;"  "Catiline;''' 
"  Volpone;  "  "  The  Alchemist ;""  The  Staple  of 
News;  "  "  The  Devil  Is  an  Ass;  "  "  The  Sad  Shep- 
herd." 

It  is  surely  a  disadvantage  in  one 
respect  to  live  coternporary  with  a 
genius  that  towers  undisputably  over 
all  others.  This  was  one  which  gave 
to  him,  whom  we  are  now  to  consider, 
much  pain  in  his  own  day,  and  possibly 
served  somewhat  to  hamper  efforts 
which,  but  for  Shakespeare,  whom  he 
regarded  his  principal  rival,  might  have 
had  more  brilliant  results.  Ben  Jonson 
was  born  in  Westminster  in  1574,  ten 
years  after  Shakespeare.  His  father  had 
been  a  poor  clergyman,  and  the  family 
hud  come  from  Scotland.  The  father 
died,  it  seems,  before  Ben  was  born, 
and  his  mother,  being  without  the 
means  of  supporting  her  family,  mar- 
ried   within  a  year  after  the  birth  of  her 

CO) 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  71 

son,  a  bricklayer.  The  boy  went  to  a 
private  school  near  St.  Martin's  in  the 
Fields  and  afterwards,  by  the  liberality 
of  a  friend  whose  name  we  do  not  know, 
was  sent  to  Westminster  school,  and 
later  procured  a  place  in  Cambridge. 
But  he  remained  there  only  for  a  short 
period.  It  is  supposed  that  the  ex- 
treme poverty  of  his  parents  needed 
him  for  business.  But  he  had  been  a 
devoted  student  while  at  Westminster 
school,  and  under  the  learned  Camden, 
who  was  one  of  the  masters  of  that  in- 
stitution, had  acquired  a  vast  amount  of 
learning  for  one  so  young.  Being  put 
by  his  stepfather  to  his  own  business, 
be  soon  became  disgusted  with  it ;  and, 
Gliding  no  other  means  of  escape,  ran 
away  and  joined  the  army,  a  portion  of 
which  was  then  engaged  in  the  Low 
Countries.  A  brave  and  gallant  soldier 
he  made  indeed  ;  and  was  full  of  ambi- 
tion for  promotion.  But  in  the  English 
army,  as  nowhere  else,  it  is  exceedingly 
difficult  to  rise  without  connections  or 
strong  recommendations,  or  with  such 
extraordinary  military  talent  as  would 
render    one's    rise  unavoidable.     After 


72  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

one  campaign  he  quit  the  occupation  of 
a  soldier  and  returned  to  London.  The 
vocations  of  young  men  as  poor  as  Jon- 
son  was  then  are  seldom  undertaken 
by  choice.  Circumstances  determine 
them,  and  it  is  to  these  circumstances, 
which  often  seemed  truly  accidental, 
that  we  are  to  ascribe  some  of  the 
greatest  things  that  have  been  done  in 
the  world.  This  poor  young  man,  hav- 
ing thus  tried  two  vocations,  one  of 
which  disgusted  him  and  the  other  could 
bring  him  no  hope  of  promotion,  deter- 
mined at  length  to  go  upon  the  stage. 
To  young  men  without  family  connec- 
tions and  without  pecuniary  means  and 
therefore  with  the  thought  of  having 
nothing  or  not  much  to  lose,  there  is 
something  very  tempting  in  the  idea  of 
going  upon  the  stage.  The  display  of 
what  is  to  be  seen  there,  the  footlights, 
the  array  of  pleasant  faces,  the  appear- 
ance of  mirth,  and  freedom  from  care  ; 
all  these  lead  many  there  at  least  for  a 
time,  and  when  they  have  once  gotten 
there  it  is  seldom  that  they  come  away. 
Jonson  would  have  gone  to  anything 
honorable,     except     brick-laying,     that 


EN6  LTSH  LITER.  IT//,'/.  73 

would  have  wrought  him  a  living.  A 
new  impulse  had  been  given  to  the 
theatre  by  the  company  at  Blackfriars, 
with  Shakespeare  at  the  head  of  the 
main  parts  of  the  business.  So  he  went 
upon  the  stage.  He  does  not  seem  to 
have  done  anything  in  this  new  sphere 
worthy  to  be  mentioned,  except  two 
things  which  are  not  naturally  associ- 
ated with  it.  The  first  of  these  is  that 
having  gotten  into  a  quarrel  with  a 
brother  actor,  a  duel  ensued  in 
which  he  killed  his  adversary,  and  was 
for  some  time  imprisoned.  Quite  as 
serious  a  thing  as  this,  he  fell  in  love 
with  a  girl  as  poor  as  himself,  and  be- 
fore either  of  them  could  take  the  time 
to  reflect  upon  the  absurdity  of  such  a 
thing,  they  married.  If  he  had  not 
been  a  poor  actor  he  might  never  have 
become  an  author.  But  now  having  to 
support  a  wife,  and  children  afterwards, 
and  seeing  the  success  of  Shakespeare 
in  that  line,  and  being  a  man  of  far 
superior  education  to  him,  he  began  to 
write  as  much  for  bread  as  for  fame. 

No  doubt  Shakespeare  contributed  in 
giving  this  determination  to  his  course. 


74  LECTURES  ON  LITERA  TURE. 

He  did  assist  in  bringing  out  his  first 
play,  "  Every  Man  in  His  Humour."  This 
took  its  name  from  a  work  which  had 
but  lately  appeared  in  England,  and 
created  much  interest.  It  was  a  trans- 
lation of  a  work  called  "  Examen  de  In- 
genios  "  in  Spanish,  whose  object  it  was 
to  maintain  that  men's  characters  and 
dispositions,  and  consequently  most  of 
their  actions,  depended  upon  the  hu- 
mours in  their  systems,  the  moist,  the 
dry,  the  hot  and  the  cold.  It  was  from 
a  sort  of  fancy  to  ridicule  the  current 
belief  in  that  system  that  Jonson 
brought  out  his  first  play  and  gave  to  it 
the  name  of  "  Every  Man  in  His  Hu- 
mour." He  was  then  twenty-two  years 
old  and  had  a  wife  and  two  children. 
Fortunately  for  him  his  wife  was  one  of 
the  domestic  kind,  and  having  always 
lived  on  a  little,  could  make  a  little, 
now  that  she  had  two  children,  go  a 
good  way  farther.  If  he  had  allowed 
her  the  complete  control  of  his  pecuni- 
ary matters  possibly  it  would  have  been 
well  for  both,  but  he  was  a  poor  manager 
and  a  willful  man,  and  it  was  often 
whispered  outside  the  family   that   she 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  75 

was  something'  of  a  shrew.  This  com- 
edy succeeded  very  finely,  and  he  set 
out  at  once  upon  a  full  career  of  author- 
ship. 

And  now  let  us  consider  the  effect  upon 
him  of  much  education  in  books.  It 
was  fortunate  that  at  this  era,  when  there 
was  much  needed  a  dramatic  literature 
suited  to  modern  civilization,  the  genius 
that  was  to  be  the  father  of  it  had  not 
been  educated  in  the  schools,  and  there- 
fore trammeled  by  precedents.  Shakes- 
peare being  thus  unrestrained  was  the 
more  able  to  strike  out  in  the  bold  paths 
which  he  made.  Now  Jonson  fell  into 
this  error  which  Shakespeare  was  thus 
able  to  avoid.  His  education  at  school 
and  at  the  University,  and  his  studies 
afterwards,  had  made  him  a  pedant;  and 
the  rivalry  which  he  felt  for  Shakespeare 
helped  to  make  him  more  of  a  pedant. 
Shakespeare's  irregular  dramas  he  never 
could  endure,  and  he  believed  that  the 
only  reason  why  Shakespeare  had  written 
them  was  because,  not  having  been  edu- 
cated like  himself,  he  did  not  know  any 
better.  These  old  rules  of  dramatic  com- 
position, he  believed,  ought  never  to  be 


76  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

altered;  they  were  the  very  perfection  of 
art.  For  the  romantic  drama  he  not  only 
had  no  fancy,  but  he  hated  it.  But  he 
succeeded  in  this  first  drama,  and 
although  his  success  gave  no  pain  to 
Shakespeare,  yet  it  did  give  pain  and 
offense  to  the  other  contemporary 
dramatists,  Marston,  Lodge,  etc.,  who 
could  not  endure  that  so  young  a  man 
should  out-strip  them  in  the  race  for 
popular  fame.  The  result  was  a  series 
of  endless  disputes  and  literary  quarrels 
which  endured  for  many  years.  But 
Jonson  was  quite  superior  to  all  of  these. 
Only  Shakespeare  was  ahead  of  him. 
And  how  this  occurred  he  was  never 
able  to  understand,  nor  become  recon- 
ciled to  it.  He  would  be  constantly 
asking  himself,  and  often  other  persons, 
how  such  a  man  as  Shakespeare  who 
knew  little  Latin  and  less  Greek,  and 
who  paid  almost  no  attention  to  Sopho- 
cles and  Aristophanes  and  Menander 
and  Terence,  could  find  such  favor.  In- 
stead of  following  the  laws  of  these 
great  writers,  or  at  least  endeavoring  to 
do  so  as  far  as  was  possible,  he  wrote 
along  as  if  they  were  not  in  the  slightest 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  77 

degree  in  his  way.  He  not  only  mingled 
the  incidents  of  several  days  in  the 
same  play,  but  those  of  several  weeks 
and  months,  and  even,  as  in  the  Winter's 
Tale,  of  several  years.  And  then  he 
even  introduced  the  sportive  into  his 
tragedies,  a  thing  that  was  wholly  incon- 
sistent with  all  precedent.  He  and 
Shakespeare  used  often  to  argue  these 
questions  at  the  club.  This  was  at  the 
Mermaid  Tavern.  It  was  called  the 
Apollo.  The  "  Mermaid "  on  Friday 
Street  was  a  famous  place  for  good  eat- 
ing. The  members  were  himself,  Shakes- 
peare, Cotton,  Carew,  Donne,  Beau- 
mont, Fletcher,  and  others. 

Thomas  Fuller,  in  his  book  called 
"  The  Worthies  of  England/'  tells  us 
that  in  this  tavern  Jonson  and  Shakes- 
peare used  to  have  many  "  wit  combats," 
as  he  terms  them. 

"  Many  "  he  says,  "  were  the  wit  com- 
bats between  him  and  Ben  Jonson, 
which  two  I  behold  like  a  Spanish  great 
galleon,  and  an  English  man-of-war. 
Master  Jonson,  like  the  former,  was 
built  far  higher  in  learning,  solid,  but 
slow  in  performance,  while  the  English 
man-of-war,  lesser  in  bulk,  but  lighter 


78  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

in  sailing,  could  turn  with  all  tides,  tack 
about  and  take  advantage  of  all  winds 
by  the  quickness  of  his  wit  and  inven- 
tion." 

This  was  the  burden  of  these  discus- 
sions. We  know  that  the  attacks  came 
from  Jonson,  and  that  he  warred  upon 
the  innovations  which  Shakespeare  made 
upon  what  he  considered  sacred.  It  was 
this  very  rivalry  doubtless  which  made 
Jonson,  who  had  a  very  combative  spirit, 
disposed,  as  the  contest  grew,  to  adhere 
more  closely  to  classical  forms. 

Yet  there  never  was  any  actual  hos- 
tility between  him  and  Shakespeare 
such  as  there  was  between  him  and  the 
lesser  dramsr1|ms.^^^J^iT^Shakespeare 
himself  wn§)  incapable  ofO  enVy,  and 
indeed  mu6t;h^\^|el^h^^^£t(4  be  too 
great  toVtand  in  oiaad  of  envying  any 
other  pers^ij^jrJ^isDiD,-  ^m^uie  other 
hand,  from  the  very  peculiar  bent  of 
his  mind  and  the  nature  of  his  edu- 
cation, honestly  considered  himself  su- 
perior to  Shakespeare,  and  in  these  "  wit 
combats,"  as  Fuller  calls  them,  tried 
to  recall  him  from  his  wanderings, 
and  fix  him  in  the  true  road  to  great- 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  79 

ness.  The  two  were  personally  friendly. 
William  Rowe  says  that  their  acquaint- 
ance began  with  the  first  introduction 
of  "  Every  Man  in  His  Humour. " 
Jonson  handed  it  in  to  one  of  the 
players  to  be  read,  and  he,  having 
turned  it  over  carelessly,  was  about  to 
throw  it  aside,  when  Shakespeare  hap- 
pening to  see  it,  read  it,  and  rec- 
ommended the  author  to  the  public. 
The  presentation  of  this  comedy  was 
received  with  great  popularity.  When 
such  a  piece  of  good  fortune  happens 
to  a  man  like  Jonson,  who  has  been 
needing  it  not  only  for  the  gratifica- 
tion of  his  self-esteem,  but  for  bread, 
he  is  apt  to  -esleem  it  too  highly. 
Heretofore,  he  had-been  upon  friendly 
terms  with*  .M&'r^toA  aiid .  Dekker,  and 
their  likes,,  Toge.th.er  they  had  been 
struggling  along  that  jveary  road,  and 
had  sympathized  with  one  another 
in  the  midst  of  the  difficulties  of  au- 
thorship. But  now  this  splendid  suc- 
cess made  the  young  author  treat  his 
old  companions  with  supercilliousness, 
and  even  disdain.  Pedantic,  highly 
irascible,  he  must  make  enemies  of  old 


80  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

friends  ;  and  although  he  and  they 
did  some  things  in  common  afterwards, 
they  were   never   fully  reconciled. 

"  Every  Man  in  His  Humour "  was 
followed  by  "  Every  Man  Out  of  His 
Humour."  There  might  be  something 
in  the  name,  and  but  a  slight  change 
was  made  in  that  of  the  next  "  child  of 
his  invention."  This  also  was  success- 
ful; but  not  quite  so  much  so  as 
the  first.  In  this  second  comedy  Jon- 
son  followed  too  closely  upon  the 
Latin  and  Greek  comedies,  which  we 
remember  to  have  been  more  satirical 
than  humorous.  It  represents  the  mean- 
ness of  the  world  rather  than  its  par- 
donable foibles,  and  tends  instead  of 
exciting  our  laughter,  to  provoke  our 
contempt  and  even  our  hatred.  Jon- 
son's  reputation  had  become  so  great 
that  the  queen  had  made  known  her  in- 
tention to  be  present  at  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  the  play.  In  acknowledg- 
ment of  this  condescension  he  appended 
an  epigram  which,  for  gross  flattery, 
can  scarcely  find  its  equal.  This  was 
in  1599.  Shakespeare  afterwards  per- 
formed his  third  piece,  "  Cynthia's  Rev- 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  81 

els,"  far  inferior  to  the  others.  The 
best  play  was  the  "  Poetaster."  By 
this  time  he  had  been  converted  to  the 
classical  drama  fully  and  in  this  he 
made  a  personal  satire  upon  his  ene- 
mies. Marston  and  Dekker  are  the 
characters  intended  in  this  drama  under 
the  names  of  Crispinus  and  Demetrius. 
He  also  satirized  the  soldiers  and  the 
lawyers  to  such  a  degree  that  he  very 
narrowly  escaped  prosecution.  Finding 
himself  liable  to  such  serious  difficulties 
in  comedy,  and  that  his  powers  in  that 
line,  so  far  as  he  could  judge  by  the 
public  estimate,  did  not  improve,  he 
formally  announced  to  the  world  that 
his  next  appearance  should  be  in  trag- 
edy. In  1603  appeared  his  first  real 
tragedy.  This  was  "  Sejanus."  This 
subject  was  well  chosen.  Sejanus,  the 
ambitious  minister  of  Tiberius,  who 
rose  so  high  and  then  suddenly  fell  so 
low,  was  a  fitting  subject  for  tragedy 
upon  the  old  models.  This  is  indeed  a 
very  great  production.  The  author  was 
fully  acquainted  with  all  the  history  of 
that  fearful  reign,  and  in  a  masterly 
way    represented   the    striking   scenes. 

L.L.— 6 


82  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

The  play  was  first  brought  out  at  the 
Globe  theatre,  and  Shakespeare  took  a 
part  in  it.  This  was  in  1603  ;  and  this 
is  the  last  time  in  which  we  know  cer- 
tainly that  Shakespeare  ever  appeared 
as  an  actor.  The  piece  succeeded  fully. 
It  has  its  own  share  of  the  majesty  of 
the  ancient  drama,  and  in  the  portrayal 
of  characters  it  is  excellent.  But  in 
this  last  respect  he  had  but  to  follow 
history. 

And  this  is  the  principal  objection 
not  only  to  this  but  also  to  his  only 
other  tragedy,  "  Catiline,  "  that  he  too 
closely  follows  history.  They  are  ver- 
sifications and  dramatizations  of  Sallust 
and  Tacitus.  The  speeches  that  are 
given  are  almost  the  speeches  as  they 
are  written  by  these  historians.  Jon- 
son  had  genius  enough  to  rise  far 
higher  than  he  did,  if  his  learning,  and 
the  pedantry  which  it  created,  had  not 
narrowed  his  judgment.  His  very  van- 
ity and  his  irascible  temper  but  made 
him  the  more  obdurate  and  persistent 
in  this  devotion  to  a  system  which  was 
obsolete,  but  which  he  thought  to  re- 
store, and  had  no  doubt  that  he  would 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  83 

be  able  to  do  so.  A  vain  man  never 
gives  up  the  belief  that  as  everybody 
else  is  wrong,  so  he  will  be  able  after 
due  time  to  convince  them  of  their 
error  and  reclaim  them.  We  can  well 
imagine  the  different  tempers  with 
which  he  and  Shakespeare  would  dis- 
cuss these  questions  at  the  "  Mermaid." 
How  infinitely  superior  Jonson  thought 
the  "  Sejanus  "  was  to  "  Julius  Caesar," 
for  instance,  or  what  a  poor  speech 
that  of  Mark  Anthony  over  the  dead 
body  of  Caesar,  to  Caesar's  speech  in 
behalf  of  Catiline,  which  the  author,  as 
it  were,  had  translated  from  the  in- 
comparable Sallust !  Shakespeare,  car- 
ing nothing  for  the  criticisms  so  as  his 
plays  continued  to  be  well  received 
by  the  public,  would  doubtless  keep  in 
good  humor,  although  possibly,  when 
Jonson  would  grow  too  personal  in 
talking  about  the  unities  and  the  cho- 
rus, he  might  request  him  to  go  to 
Guinea  or  some  such  place,  and  carry 
his  chorus  and  unities  along  with  him. 
Finally,  the  principal  defect  of  these 
tragedies  is  that  they  are  wanting  in 
pathos  without  which  tragedy,  however 


84  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE 

exalted  in  style  and  however  success- 
ful in  the  delineation  of  character,  is 
insufficient  to  produce  the  great  objects 
for  which  it  was  originated  — -  sympa- 
thy with  misfortune.  In  reading  Jon- 
son's  tragedies,  we  are  filled  with 
admiration  for  his  fine  descriptions, 
his  noble  language,  and  even  for  his 
successful  delineations  of  character ; 
but  we  never  feel  like  shedding  tears, 
which  are  the  highest  compensation 
and  the  sweetest  pleasure  that  we  ever 
receive  from  the  perusal  in  this  form 
of  the  crimes  and  sorrows  of  man- 
kind. 

Jonson  wrote  only  these  two  trag- 
edies. But  he  probably  spent  as  much 
time  upon  these  as  Shakespeare  spent 
upon  any  half  dozen  of  his.  Thinking 
that  he  must  be  perfectly  acquainted 
with  every  circumstance,  little  and  great, 
in  the  actions  he  was  to  represent,  he 
elaborated  and  studied  with  an  amount 
of  patience  and  work  which  would 
have  been  sufficient  for  a  full  history 
of  them   in  all   their   particulars. 

After  this  Jonson  devoted  himself 
in  the  intervals  of  his  leisure  again  to 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  85 

comedy.  Three  of  these  appeared  in 
succession  :  "  Volpone  ;  "  "  The  Silent 
Woman  ; "  and  the  "  Alchemist,"  all 
having  very  high  merit.  "  Volpone  " 
and  the  "Alchemist"  are  allowed  to  be 
his  best.  The  scenes  of  "  Volpone  "  are 
laid  in  France.  The  leading  character 
is  Volpone  a  powerful  noble,  rich,  sel- 
fish and  fond  of  pleasures,  but  most 
fond  of  those  that  are  forbidden.  To  this 
Volpone  is  attached  one  of  the  most 
cunning  and  unprincipled  of  knaves 
named  Mosca,  whose  business  it  is  to 
minister  to  his  master's  appetites.  Vol- 
pone is  a  bachelor,  and  his  most  subtle 
trick  to  increase  his  influence  and  his 
wealth  is  the  prevalence  of  the  notion 
that  he  is  a  great  invalid,  and,  as  he  is 
expected  to  die  soon,  through  Mosca 
he  disseminates  the  idea  that  he  intends 
to  bequeath  his  estate  to  those  who  are 
the  most  liberal  in  bestowing  presents 
upon  him  while  he  lives.  Whoever  has 
read  much  of  the  classical  dramas  will 
see  at  once  the  resemblance  between 
this  comedy  and  them,  the  miser  being 
a  favorite  character.  Speaking  to  Mosca, 
Volpone  says: 


;6  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

Good  morning  to  the  day ;  and  next  my  gold ! 

Open  the  shrine  that  I  may  see  my  saint, 

Hail  the  world's   soul   and   mine!    more   glad 

than  is 
.The  teeming  earth  to  see  the  longed-for  sun 
Peep  through  the  horns  of  the  celestial  Ram ; 
Am  I  to  view  thy  splendor  darkening  his, 
That,  lying  here,  amongst  my  other  hoards, 
Should  like  a  flame  by  night,  or  like  the  day 
Struck  out  of  chaos,  when  all  darkness  fled 
Into  the  centre.    O  thou  son  of  Sol, 
But  brighter  than  thy  father,  let  me  kiss 
With  adoration  thee,  and  every  relic 
Of  sacred  treasure  in  this  blessed  room. 
Well  did  wise  poets  by  thy  glorious  name, 
Title  that  age  which  thou  would  have  the  best, 
Thou  being  the  best  of  things  and  far  transcend- 
ing 
All  style  of  joy  in  children,  parents,  friends, 
Or  any  other  waking  dream  on  earth: 
Thy  looks  when  they  to  Venus  did  ascribe, 
They  should  have  given  her  twenty  thousand 

Cupids ; 
Such  are  thy  beauties  and  our  loves!  Dear  Saint, 
Riches,    the   dumb   god,    that   givest   all    men 

tongues, 
Thou  canst  do  naught,  and  yet  maketh  men  do 

all  things; 
The  price  of  souls,  even  hell,  with  thee  to  boot, 
Is  made  worth  heaven.   Thou  art  virtue,  fame, 
Honour,  and  all  things  else.    Who  can  get  thee, 
He  shall  be  noble,  valiant,  honest,  wise- 
Yet  I  glory 
More  in  the  cunning  purchase  of  my  wealth, 
Than  in  the  glad  possession,  since  I  gain 
No  common  way ;  I  use  no  trade,  no  venture ; 
I  wound  no  earth  with    ploughshares,    fat   no 

beasts, 
To  feed  the  shambles;  have  no  mills  for  iron, 
Oil,  corn,  or  men  to  grind  them  into  powder. 
I  blow  no  subtle  glass,  expose  no  ships 
To  threatenings  of  the  furrow-faced  sea, 
I  turn  no  moneys  in  the  public  bank, 
Nor  usure  private." 


y;.\  i }  I.  Isii  L I TER  ATI  i:  i .  8? 

There  is  very  much  more  of  this  sort 
wherein  the  author  has  drawn  perhaps 
the  most  cunning,  ruthless  scoundrel  to 
be  found  in  all  poetic  literature.  A  man 
need  go  no  further  in  order  to  find 
human  nature  iri  its  worst  and  most  con- 
temptible aspect  than  in  "  Volpone." 

The  "  Alchemist  "  is  another  powerful 
production.  In  that  also  we  have  an- 
other batch  of  precious  rascals.  The 
leading  rogues  are  Subtle,  the  conjuror; 
and  Face,  his  co-partner,  who  is  a  butler, 
but  in  the  disguise  of  a  captain.  The 
principal  dupes  are  Dapper,  a  lawyer's 
clerk  addicted  to  gambling,  and  Sir 
Epicure  Mammon,  a  poor  fool  who  is  in 
search  of  the  philosopher's  stone  and  the 
elixir  of  youth.  This  visionary  idea  of 
the  philosopher's  stone  was  quite  com- 
mon even  among  educated  men  a  little 
before  this  period,  and  the  object  of 
this  drama  was  to  bring  it  into  ridicule. 
True  to  his  principles  to  study  all  the 
learning  that  was  to  be  had  upon  what- 
ever subject  he  wrote  about,  Jonson, 
before  writing  this  play,  made  himself 
acquainted  with  the  entire  theory  of 
the      philosopher's     stone,     and     even 


88  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

learned    the    whole    of    the    jargon    of 
alchemy. 

I  said  that  he  wrote  these  little  plays 
in  the  intervals  of  business,  for  he 
was  made  poet  laureate  to  King  James 
I.,  and  as  such  he  had  to  prepare  and 
superintend  the  masques  and  other  pag- 
eants of  the  court.  To  give  one  in- 
stance of  the  meanness  of  this,  the 
meanest  of  kings,  Marston  and  Chap- 
man had  written  a  comedy  called 
"Eastward  Hoe!"  and  Jonson  was 
thought,  though  he  afterwards  denied 
it,  to  have  assisted  in  this  drama.  In  it 
there  was  an  allusion  to  the  Scotch,  in 
which  they  were  somewhat  ridiculed. 
The  king,  having  heard  of  the  piece, 
imprisoned  both  Marston  and  Chap- 
man. Jonson,  however,  voluntarily 
accompanied  them  to  prison  in  or- 
der to  share  their  punishment,  and 
it  was  probably  through  his  par- 
ticipation and  his  interest  that  they 
were  enlarged.  He  was  well  paid  by 
King  James,  who,  in  this  respect,  was 
more  liberal  than  Elizabeth.  On  the 
death  of  the  king  he  lost  his  position, 
and  as  he    had    saved    nothing    of   the 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  g9 

earnings  of  years,  he  was  very  poor. 
Add  to  this  the  fact  that  he  was  old, 
and  that  his  faculties  of  mind  and  body 
had  become  impaired  by  lingering  too 
long  at  the  wine  of  the  "  Mermaid."  He 
had  now  to  write  again  for  bread;  but  the 
youthful  vigor  was  gone,  and  his  come- 
dies henceforth  were  failures.  "  The  Sta- 
ple of  News,"  "  the  Devil  Is  an  Ass," 
"  The  New  Sun,"  "  The  Magnetic  Lady," 
"The  Tale  of  a  Tub,"  are  all  quite 
inferior  to  the  average  of  his  earlier 
dramas.  It  is  melancholy  to  know  how 
the  brave-hearted  old  man  thus  strug- 
gled and  struggled  in  vain  with  poverty 
and  the  infirmities  of  age.  He  deserves 
praise  in  that  he  was  brave  and  faithful 
to  the  principles  in  which  he  believed. 
The  votary  of  the  muse  of  olden  times, 
he  kept  her  shrine  as  well  as  he  could 
in  the  days  of  a  new  and  adverse  wor- 
ship, and  was  true  to  her  to  the  last.  In 
his  delineation  of  individual  character, 
he  was  preeminently  great.  His  com- 
edies have  been  justly  called  the  "  Com- 
edies of  Character."  He  represented 
contemporary  manners  and  characters. 
In  this  he  was  superior  to  Shakespeare  ; 


90  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

but  Shakespeare  was  his  superior  even 
in  this  phase  of  the  same  idea,  that  he 
represented  the  things  appertaining  to 
men  and  women  that  are  unusual,  and 
that  belong  to  them  of  all  times  and  all 
countries.  The  genial  humor,  the  all- 
sidedness  of  Shakespeare  he  never  had, 
and  the  peculiarity  of  his  mind  was 
such  that  he  never  could  have  obtained 
them,  because  according  to  his  educa- 
tion and  his  ideas  they  were  of  no 
value,  so  variant  were  they  from  old 
modes  which  his  deep  learning  and  his 
deeper  prejudices  prevented  him  from 
finding  to  be  obsolete. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  produc- 
tions in  poetry  is  the  last  thing  that  he 
wrote.  This  is  "The  Sad  Shepherd." 
The  aged,  broken,  disappointed  poet 
seemed  to  have  mustered  the  scattered 
and  broken  pieces  of  his  genius  for  this 
last  work. 

The  minor  works  of  Jonson  have 
many  beauties  and  other  excellencies. 
These  are  found  in  his  lyrics,  epi- 
grams, etc.  The  ode  to  Celia,  be- 
ginning "  Drink  to  me  only  with  thine 
eyes,"  patterned  after  some  of  the  love 


ENGLISH  LITER  A  TV  RE.  %\ 

letters  of  Philostratos,  has  not  been  sur- 
passed in  favor  by  any  in  that  or  subse- 
quent periods.  All  lovers  of  music  are 
familiar  with  it,  and  all  singers  have 
sought,  and  most  of  them  have  failed, 
to  render  it  fitly  in  song. 


VI. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher:  "Philaster;"  "The 
Maid's  Tragedy ;  "  Philip  Massinger  :  "  The  Rene- 
gado ;"  "  The  Fatal  Dowry ;"  "  The  City  Madam  ;" 
"A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts;"  "The  Virgin 
Martyr." 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher:  a  part- 
nership in  literature.  To  us  this  seems 
strange.  It  is  curious  that  two  men 
should  thus  have  been  united  in  the 
productions  which  come  exclusively 
from  the  exertions  of  that  invisible  and 
subtle  thing,  the  human  imagination. 
How  are  two  of  these  agencies,  espe- 
cially in  the  field  of  pure  fancy,  to 
compare  their  separate  thoughts  and 
images  and  combine  them  into  one  har- 
monious picture?  Yet  this  partnership 
was  not  very  strange  in  that  day. 
"Eastward  Hoe!"  was  the  joint  pro- 
duction of  Marston  and  Dekker  with 
some  little  investment  in  it  by  Ben 
Jonson.  Such  connections  were  very 
common  in  individual   plays.     That  of 

(92) 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  93 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher  and  their  ex- 
traordinary abilities  served  to  make 
them  more  distinguished  than  the  rest 
in  this  particular.  It  was  one  founded, 
however,  as  much  upon  mutual  regard 
as  upon  the  other  reasons  for  which 
such  relations  are  sometimes  established. 
The  most  of  such  connections  were 
purely  of  a  business  character.  The  poor- 
est and  most  unhappy  men  that  have 
lived  in  this  world  probably  have  been 
those  who  were  authors  by  profession, 
and  of  these,  with  a  few  exceptions, 
dramatic  authors  have  been  the  poor- 
est and  most  unhappy.  The  men  who 
wrote  dramas  in  the  times  which  we 
are  considering  wrote  for  bread.  The 
fellow  feeling  of  poverty  and  misery, 
and  the  hope  of  being  able  to  accom- 
plish more  by  combining  forces  than 
exerting  them  separately,  would  often 
draw  together  two,  and  sometimes  three, 
into  a  partnership  which  might  be  lim- 
ited to  one  or  three  plays,  and  the 
proceeds  of  their  sales  divided  like  the 
profits  of  any  other  business.  This  last 
motive,  however,  it  is  probable,  had 
nothing1  or  not   much  to  do    with    the 


94  L  E(  TUBES  OX  LITER  A  TUBE. 

union  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  at 
least  with  the  former,  who,  it  was  said, 
inherited  an  estate  sufficient  to  sup- 
port him. 

The  difference  in  the  dates  of  the 
births  of  these  two  friends  is  usually 
set  down  as  ten  years,  though  one  of 
their  biographers,  Dyce,  fixes  it  at  five. 
But  the  date  usually  assigned  to 
Fletcher  is  1576  and  to  Beaumont 
1586.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  the 
younger  man  died  ten  years  before 
the  elder.  Therefore  most  of  the 
works  which  appear  over  their  joint 
names  were  written  by  Fletcher. 

John  Fletcher  was  the  son  of  Doctor 
Richard  Fletcher,  afterwards  Bishop  of 
London.  The  most  notorious  thing 
recorded  of  his  father,  who  was  as  time- 
serving a  prelate  as  lived  in  that  age, 
was  his  importunate  attempt  in  the 
morning  of  the  execution  of  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots,  to  convert  her  to  the 
Protestant  Church.  His  reward  for  this 
insult,  heartless  under  the  circumstances, 
was  his  elevation  by  Elizabeth  to  the 
see  of  Bristol. 

Francis  Beaumont  was  the  son  of  one 


ENGLISH  LITERA  TURE.  95 

of  the  judges  of  the  Court  of  Common 
Pleas.  Both  were  educated  at  Cam- 
bridge. Fletcher  had  written  two  plays, 
"The  Woman  Hater"  and  "  Thierj," 
before  he  and  Beaumont  formed  that 
connection  which  continued  during 
their  joint  lives.  Beaumont  had  been 
intended  for  his  father's  profession,  and 
was  for  awhile  a  student  of  the  Inner 
Temple.  But  an  intimacy  sprang  up 
between  him  and  Fletcher  and  never 
was  a  closer  between  two  men.  They 
occupied  the  same  room,  wore  each 
other's  clothes  and  slept  together  until 
Beaumont's  marriage.  Even  this  fact 
did  not  interfere  with  their  literary 
partnership. 

After  the  accession  of  Beaumont  to 
literature,  they  in  good  time  produced 
their  first  play,  "  Philaster,  or  Love  Lies 
Bleeding."  The  preceding  works  of 
Fletcher  had  been  unsuccessful,  and  it 
is  thought  that  Beaumont  had  written 
some  plays  which  were  equally  so.  But 
the  appearance  of  "  Philaster  "  showed 
that  the  new  firm,  whatever  they  may 
have  been  individually,  were  destined, 
when  joined,  to  make  a  brilliant  career. 


96  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

Contemporary  with  the  British  drama, 
that  in  Spain  had  begun  its  rise,  and, 
next  to  the  British,  was  destined  to  be 
the  richest  in  Europe.  That  of  -the 
other  European  countries  had  not  re- 
covered from  the  bonds  of  the  ancient 
classical  rules.  Shakespeare  in  Eng- 
land, and  Calderon  and  Lope  de  Vega 
in  Spain,  had  first  and  contemporane- 
ously broken  these  bonds  and  started 
the  romantic  drama,  on  the  basis  suited 
in  each  to  the  civilizations  of  their  sev- 
eral countries.  Beaumont  and  Fletcher 
had  studied  the  Spanish  drama.  Being 
both  men  of  education,  they  had  each 
become  well  acquainted  with  those 
new  ideas  which  Calderon  and  Lope 
de  Vega  had  introduced  into  the  litera- 
ture of  Spain.  These  were  to  represent 
everyday  life.  This  drama  was  called 
"  Capa  y  Espada"  (the  drama  of  the 
Cap  and  Sword). 

There  is  a  peculiar  tinge  of  romance 
in  the  literature  of  Spain,  which  was 
imparted  by  the  Saracens,  who,  for  a 
long  time,  occupied  the  southern  part  of 
it,  and  who,  at  that  time,  were  the  most 
cultivated  people  in  Europe.     No  peo- 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE,  97 

pie  are  as  fond  of  adventure,  surpris- 
ing denouements,  and  intrigue,  as  the 
Spaniards.  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  im- 
ported these  ideas  into  the  British  drama. 
There  is  comparatively  little  of  in- 
trigue in  the  comedies  of  Shakespeare. 
One  can  usually  foresee,  soon  after  the 
opening,  how  they  are  to  end.  Many 
of  them  are  purely  fanciful.  In  those 
where  there  is  an  invention,  even  this 
gives  place  to  the  author's  main  object, 
the  creation  of  distinct  and  individual 
characters.  Ben  Jonson  also,  as  we 
have  seen,  wrote  comedies  of  character, 
but  there  is  little  of  intrigue  in  them.  On 
the  other  hand,  those  of  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher  are  comedies  of  intrigue.  Not 
purely  so,  for,  liko  Jonson,  being  both 
well  educated  men,  they  were  fond  of 
the  classical,  and  in  their  works  are  evi- 
dences of  a  disposition  to  observe  the 
unities.  With  Beaumont  Jonson  was 
very  intimate,  and  he  condescended 
sometimes  to  consult  him  in  arranging 
his  plots.  Thus  both  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher  used  to  describe  in  smooth 
phrase  whatever  was  exalted,  and  es- 
pecially    whatever     was     tender     and 


98  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

pathetic.  But  the  distinctive  quality  of 
their  dramas  is  the  pleasure  that  arises 
from  the  conduct  of  subtle  intrigues 
and  the  leading  of  them  to  an  unex- 
pected development. 

It  was  a  singular  freak  of  fortune 
that  the  plays  of  these  two  very  young 
men,  who  were  not  so  sorely  in  need, 
should  have  had  a  better  run  than  those 
of  their  contemporaries,  whose  daily 
bread  depended  upon  the  success  of 
theirs.  But  pleasure-seeking  people 
like  to  see  cheerfulness  in  those  who 
undertake  to  minister  to  their  enjoy- 
ment. And  indeed  few  things  must  be 
so  difficult  as  for  a  man  to  make  merri- 
ment, when  the  consciousness  is  ever 
about  him  that  if  he  fail,  he  and  those 
he  loves  best  must  be  hungry  and  cold. 
In  reading  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  one 
can  see  the  evidences  of  a  sense  of 
leisure  and  security.  Their  pleasant 
scenes  are  arranged  with  all  the  order 
and  nicety  which  a  cheerful  spirit  em- 
ploys in  planning  an  entertainment 
which  he  foresees  is  going  to  please  all 
who  are  to  be  invited.  These  plays, 
therefore,  became  soon  the  favorites  of 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  99 

the  stag;e,  on  which  they  were  far  more 
popular  for  a  time,  than  Shakespeare's. 
There  was  another  reason  for  this 
popularity,  not  very  complimentary  to 
the  morals  or  the  tastes  of  our  ances- 
tors. That  was  the  frequent  indecen- 
cies which  they  carried.  Two  reasons 
may  be  given  for  the  immoral  employ- 
ment of  these  indecencies.  First  :  The 
bad  examples  of  the  Spanish  drama. 
Suspicions  and  infidelities  in  Spanish 
life,  represented  so  to  nature  in  the 
dramas  of  that  language,  were  too 
tempting  to  such  men  to  be  resisted  by 
them.  But  a  more  convincing  reason 
was  this  :  The  sentiment  of  Puritanism, 
as  it  was  derisively  called,  had  been  grow- 
ing with  wondrous  rapidity  in  England. 
The  more  the  Puritans  were  divided 
among  themselves,  the  more  separate  and 
numerous  and  strong  and  hostile  they  be- 
came to  the  adherents  of  the  Established 
Church.  Their  hostility  was  evinced  in 
nothing  more  than  in  the  admonitions 
that  were  given  to  the  theatres.  Such 
a  hostility  had  its  natural  effect  upon 
both.  The  more  the  Puritans  inveighed 
against    the    immoralities  of  the  stage, 


100  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

the  more  indecent  the  stage  must  be- 
come. The  best  jests  that  could  be 
made  against  the  enemies  of  the  stage 
were  those  which  made  the  subject- 
matters  of  their  complaint  the  more 
pertinent  and  offensive.  This  was  the 
beginning  of  that  long  career  of  cant 
and  hypocrisy  on  one  side,  and  ribaldry 
and  infidelity  on  the  other,  in  which 
true  piety  seemed  destined  to  perish. 

I  said  that  the  first  joint  produc- 
tion of  these  poets  was  "  Philaster." 
This  ranks  among  the  best.  The  scenes 
are  laid  in  Sicily.  The  heroine  is 
Arethusa.  We  know  at  once  from  this 
name  that  the  poets  are  familiar  with 
ancient  mythology,  and  that  they  have 
followed  the  nymph  of  Diana  in  her 
flight  from  Alpheus,  the  river  god  in 
Elis,  and  across  the  Sicilian  Sea. 
Arethusa  is  the  daughter  of  the  king 
of  Sicily,  who  is  in  love  with  and  is 
loved  bv  Philaster,  a  native  prince  and 
the  rightful  heir  to  the  throne.  But 
her  father  has  destined  her  for  a  Span- 
ish prince,  Pharamond.  Delicacy  is  a 
fine  thing  in  woman,  and  generally 
speaking  it  does  not   look  well  for  her 


English  literature.  \q\ 

to  avow  her  love  until  she  is  asked. 
But  circumstances  alter  cases.  When 
a  fine  young  lover  is  devoted  to  a 
young  woman,  who  knows  without 
doubt  that  he  would  gladly  marry  her 
if  he  could,  but  is  restrained  from  at- 
tempting it  because  he  feels  certain 
that  he  could  not,  she  might  even,  out 
of  compassion  for  him,  tell  him  to  try 
it.  But  Arethusa  was  a  princess,  and 
Philaster  was  without  power,  although 
well  beloved  by  the  people.  King's 
daughters  must  be  allowed  greater 
privileges  than  other  women  ;  and  if 
they  are  not  they  will  take  them.  So 
this  princess,  not  like  her  namesake, 
who  was  averse  to  matrimony,  sends 
for  Philaster  and  this  is  the  conversa- 
tion which   they  hold  : 

Philaster — Madam,  your  messenger 

Made  me  believe  you  wished  to  speak  with  me. 

Arethusa — 'Tis  true,  Philaster;  but  the  words  are 
Such  I  have  to  say,  and  do  so  ill  beseem 
The  mouth  of  woman,  that  I  wish  them  said, 
Ajid  yet  am  loath  to  speak  them.   Have  you 
Known  that  I  have  aught  detracted  from  your 

worth? 
Have  I  in  person  wrong'd  you?  or  have  set 
My  baser  instruments  to  throw  disgrace 
Upon  your  virtues? 

Philaster— Newer,  Madam,  you? 


102  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

Arethusa — Why,  then,  should  you,  in  such  a  public 
place, 
Injure  a  princess,  and  a  scandal  lay 
Upon  my  fortunes,  fam'd  to  be  so  great. 
Calling  a  great  part  of  my  dowry  in  question? 

Philaster— Madam,  this  truth  which  I  shall  speak 
will  be 
Foolish ;  but  for  your  fair  and  virtuous  self, 
I  could  afford  myself  to  have  no  right 
To  anything  you  wished. 

Arethusa — Philaster  know 

I  must  enjoy  these  kingdoms. 

pli  ilaster — Madam,  both? 

Arethusa — Both,  or  I  die;  by  fate  I  die,  Philaster, 
If  I  not  calmly  may  enjoy  them  both. 

Philaster— 1  would  do  much  to  save  that  noble  life  : 
Yet  would  be  loath  to  have  posterity 
Find  in  our  stories,  that  Philaster  gave 
His  right  unto  a  sceptre  and  a  crown 
To  save  a  lady's  longing. 

Arethusa — Nay  then,  hear: 

I  must  and  will  have  them,  and  more — 

Philaster—  What  more? 

Arethusa—  Or  lose  that  little  life  the  gods  prepar'd 
To  trouble  this  poor  piece  of  earth  withal. 

Philaster — Madam,  what  more? 

Arethusa — Turn  then  away  thy  face. 

Philaster — No. 

Arethusa — Do. 

Philaster— I  can  endure  it.    Turn  away  my  face! 
I  never  yet  saw  enemy  that  look'd 
So  dreadfully,  but  that  I  thought  myself 
As  great  a  basilisk  as  he ;  or  spake 
So  horribly,  but  that  I  thought  my  tongue 
Bore  thunder  underneath,  as  much  as  his; 
Nor  beast  that  I  could  turn  from :  Shall  I  then 
Begin  to  fear  sweet  sounds?  a  lady's  voice, 
Whom  I  do  love?    Say,  you  would  have  my  life ; 
Why,  I  will  give  it  you ;  for  'tis  of  me 
A  thing  so  loath'd,  and  unto  you  that  ask 
Of  so  poor  use,  that  I  shall  make  no  price: 
If  you  entreat,  I  will  unmov'dly  hear. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  103 

A  rt  thusa — Yet,  for  my  sake,  a  little  bend  thy  looks. 
Philaster — I  do. 

Arethusa — Then  know,  I  must  have  them  and  thee 
Philaster — And  me? 

Arethusa — Thy  love;  without  which  all  the  land 
Discovered  yet  will  serve  me  for  no  use 
But  to  be  buried  in. 

Philaster — Is't  possible? 

An  thusa — With  it,  it  were  too  little  to  bestow 
On  thee.    Now,  though  thy  breath  do  strike  me 

dead, 
(Which,  know,  it   may),    I   have   unwript   my 
breast. 

Philaster  —  Madam,   you   are    too    full    of   noble 
thoughts 
To  lay  a  train  for  this  contemned  life 
Which  you  may  have  for  asking:  to  suspect 
Were  base,  where  I  deserve  no  ill.    Love  you! 
By  all  my  hopes  I  do,  above  my  life! 
But  how  this  passion  should  proceed  from  you 
So  violently,  would  amaze  a  man 
That  would  be  jealous. 

Arethusa — Another    soul  into  my  body  shot 

Could  not  have  fill'd  me  with  more  strength  and 

spirit 
Than  this  thy  breath.  But  spend  not  hasty  time. 
In  seeking  how  I  came  thus;  'tis  the  gods, 
The  gods,  that  make  me  so ;  and,  sure,  our  love 
Will  be  the  nobler  and  the  better  blest, 
In  that  the  secret  justice  of  the  gods 
Is  mingled  with  it.    Let  us  leave  and  kiss ; 
Lest  some  unwelcome  guest  should  fall  betwixt 

us, 
And  we  should  part  without  it. 

Bellario  is  a  girl  in  boy's  apparel,  which 

she  has   assumed   in  order  to   be   near 

Philaster,  whom  she  loves.     There  is  an 

amount  of  plot  and  numerous  escapes  and 

astonishing   developments  in   this  play 

which  would  satisfy  all  those  most  fond  of 

such  thing's.   Philaster  and  Arethusa  suc- 

ceed  at  last  in  their  love,  and  Bellario  is 


104  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

very  well  satisfied  with  being  their  serv- 
ant. Bellario  became  a  most  popular  and 
famous  character.  She  is  the  prototype 
of  that  class  of  females  whom  we  meet 
throughout  our  subsequent  dramatic 
literature,  who,  loving  beyond  their 
hopes,  put  on  boy's  clothes,  and  follow 
their  lovers  into  all  sorts  of  places  and 
through  all  sorts  of  adventures.  They 
are  always  unfortunate  in  their  loves, 
and  distinguished  for  the  most  unselfish 

o 

cooperation  with  their  lover's  efforts  to 
marry  somebody  else. 

These  men  continued  to  write  together 
for  ten  years  until  1616,  when  Beaumont 
died.  In  this  time  Beaumont  wrote  two 
plays  separately  and  Fletcher  four,  and 
they  jointly  wrote  twenty-four.  After 
Beaumont's  death  Fletcher  wrote,  in  the 
ten  years  he  survived  his  friend,  twenty 
alone  and  ten  in  connection  with  other 
dramatists. 

Among  their  joint  productions  one  of 
the  most  celebrated  is  "  The  Maid's  Trag- 
edy." Aspasia  is  the  heroine.  These 
men  doubtless  had  read  Thucydides,  and 
knew  of  the  weakness  of  the  great  Peri- 
cles  for  the  fair  Saurian  woman,  Asmsia. 


ENG L IS  II  LITERATI *R E.  \ 05 

The  noble  Amintor  is  betrothed  to  As- 
pasia,  but  he,  for  the  sake  of  political 
promotion,  abandons  her  for  Evadne, 
the  sister  of  the  general  Melantius.  The 
pictures  made  of  Aspasia's  grief  are  very 
touching.  In  the  following  she  counsels 
her  maids,  Olympias  and  Antiphila: 

Aspasia  — "  Did  you  ne'er  love,  wenches?    Speak 
Olympias: 
Thou  hast  an  easy  temper,  fit  for  stamp. 

Olympias  —  Never. 

Aspasia  —  Nor  you,  Antiphila  ? 

Antiphila  — Not  I. 

Aspasia  —  Then,   my   good    girls,    be   more    than 
women,  wise; 
At  least  be  more  than  I  was;  and  be  sure 
You  credit  anything  the  light  gives  light  to, 
Before  a  man.    Rather  believe  the  sea 
Weeps  for  the  ruined  merchant,  when  he  roars: 
Rather,  the  wind  courts  but  the  fragrant  sails, 
When  the  strong  cordage  cracks ;  rather  the  sun 
Comes  but  to  kiss  the  fruit  in  wealthy  autumn. 
When  all  falls  blasted.    If  you  needs  must  love, 
(Forced  by  ill  fate)  take  to  your  maiden  bosoms 
Two  dead-cold  aspics,  and  of  them  make  lovers : 
They  cannot  falter,  nor  forswear.    One  kiss 
Makes  a  long  peace  for  all.    But  man  — 

Come,  lets  be  sad,  my  girls. 
That  down-cast  of  thine  eye,  Olympias, 
Shows  a  fine  sorrow.    Mark,  Antiphila, 
Just  such  another  was  the  nymph  (Enone 
When  Paris  brought  home  Helen.     Now  a  tear; 
And  then  thou  art  a  piece  expressing  fully 
The  Carthage  queen,  when  from  a  cold  sea-rock 
Full  with  her  sorrow,  she  tied  fast  her  eyes 
To  the  fair  Trojan  ships,  and,  having  lost  them, 
Just  as  thine  eyes  do,  down  stole  a  tear." 


106  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

They  were  two  highly  gifted  men. 
Birth  and  other  accidents  had  given  to 
them  acquaintance  with  the  habits  and 
the  witty  and  meaningless  thrusts  and 
repartees  of  courtiers  not  possessed 
even  by  Shakespeare.  Then  they  knew 
of  the  better  things  in  courtiers,  their 
sincere  loves  and  sore  disappointments. 
It  is  curious  how  pathetic  they  can  be 
at  times;  how  tender  and  delicate;  and 
then  how  soon  they  fall  into  indecen- 
cies, even  obscenities.  It  seems  a  pity 
that  they  were  such  time-servers.  The 
divine  right  of  kings  is  shown  to  be  one 
of  their  worships.  The  scene  in  the 
"  Maid's  Tragedy,"  where  Amintor,  hav- 
ing led  Evadne  into  the  bridal  cham- 
ber, finds  that  she  is  the  king's  para- 
mour, and  himself  chosen  by  him  to  be 
known  abroad  as  the  ostensible  father 
of  her  offspring,  is  the  very  incarnation 
of  intensest  grief.  Yet,  his  submission 
when  he  finds  that  it  is  the  king  who 
has  wronged  him  makes  a  case  of  pas- 
sive obedience  too  gross  to  be  credited 
of  one  who  has  in  his  being  even  the 
smallest  element  of  manhood. 

These    men    only    dallied    with    the 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  107 

emotions  which  they  were  well  capable 
of  portraying  in  their  best,  legitimate 
exercise,  and  preferred  to  trifle  with, 
instead  of  treating  with  reverence,  the 
things  by  which  good  men  are  enno- 
bled. They  held  the  stage  until  the 
time  came  when  the  necessity  of  clean- 
ing it  was  apparent  to  all  eyes,  and 
then  they  were  relegated  to  the  silence 
to  which  long  ago  they  should  have 
been  consigned. 

o 

The  last  to  be  considered  in  this 
series  is  Philip  Massinger,  who,  except 
in  the  matter  of  poverty  and  suffering, 
was  unlike  any  of  the  preceding.  His  is 
one  of  the  saddest  among  the  many  sad 
lives  of  poets.  His  father  for  many 
years  was  an  employee  in  the  family  of 
Pembroke,  at  whose  seat,  Wilton,  the 
son  spent  the  years  of  his  childhood, 
and,  as  it  was  conjectured  by  some, 
acted  as  page  to  the  countess,  and 
had  for  his  god-father,  Sir  Philip  Sid- 
ney. Entered  at  St.  Alban's  Hall,  Ox- 
ford, in  1602,  in  1606  he  suddenly  left 
without  a  degree.  It  was  said  that  this 
was  owing  to  the  fact  of  his  becoming 
a  convert  to    the    Catholic    faith.     His 


108  LECTURES  ON  LITERA  TVRE. 

father  had  died  not  long  before,  and  so 
had  the  old  earl.  His  son  and  successor, 
William  Herbert  (the  "  W.  H."  to 
whom  Shakespeare's  sonnets  were  dedi- 
cated), although  a  generous,  even  mu- 
nificent patron,  could  not  brook  such 
conduct,  and  the  youth  was  left  to  his 
own  resources.  Such  a  change  in  faith 
during  that  period  was  as  if  the  convert 
was  dead,  or,  what  was  worse,  become 
leprous. 

Little  is  known  of  Massinger  thence- 
forth. He  seems  to  have  lived,  as  much 
as  possible,  apart  from  such  as  Peele  and 
Greene,  and  Marlowe,  by  whose  excesses, 
and  especially  whose  impiety,  his  sensi- 
tive, serious,  religious  nature  wasshocked 
beyond  endurance.  These  he  had  to 
meet  sometimes,  even  frequently,  for 
the  purpose  of  conference  upon  their 
joint  productions.  For,  although  not  as 
extensive  as  that  between  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  connections  were  among  these 
others.  It  seemed  to  be  necessary  for 
them  to  have  much  to  do  in  common  in 
order  to  help  and  be  helped  in  a  work 
of  all  others  most  inadequately  paid  for. 

The  price  for  a  play   then  amounted 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  109 

to  a  little  over  twenty  dollars,  often  not 
as  much,  and  when  we  consider  how 
many  of  these  must  have  been  rejected, 
we  can  form  an  idea  of  how  precarious 
must  have  been  the  lives  of  playwrights, 
and  how  the  fellow  feeling  of  neglect 
and  want  served  to  bring  them  together 
in  cooperative  endeavors.  Few  things 
could  be  more  pathetic  than  the  follow- 
ing appeal  by  Massinger  and  some  of 
his  humble  friends  to  Hinchlow,  a  stage 
manager,  which  will  tend  to  show  how 
miserable  and  poor  were  professional 
authors  generally: 

"  To  our  most  loving  friend,  Mr. 
Philip  Hinchlow,  Esquire,  these: 

Mr.  Hinchlow: — You  understand  our 
unfortunate  extremitie,  and  I  do  not 
thinke  you  so  void  of  Christianitie,  but 
that  you  would  throw  so  much  money 
into  the  Thames  as  wee  request  now  of 
you,  rather  than  endanger  so  many  in- 
nocent lives.  You  know  there  is  £  X 
more  at  least  to  be  received  of  you  for 
the  play.  We  desire  you  to  lend  us 
£5  of  that;  which  shall  be  allowed  to 
you,  without  which  we  cannot  be  bayled, 
nor  I  play  any  more  till  this  be  dis- 
patched. It  will  lose  you  £  XX  ere  the 
end  of  next  week,  besides  the  hindrance 


HO  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

of  the  next  new  play.  Pray?  sir,  our 
cases  with  humanity,  and  now  give  us 
cause  to  acknowledge  you  our  true  friend 
in  time  of  neede.  Wee  have  entreated 
Mr.  Davison  to  deliver  this  note  as  well 
to  witness  your  love  as  our  promises, 
and  always  acknowledgment  to  be  ever, 
Your  most  thankful  and  loving 
friends 

(Nat  Field). 
"  The  money  shall  be  abated  out  of 
the  money  remaynes  for  the  play  of  Mr. 
Fletcher  and  ours."  Signed  by  Robert 
Du  Borne;  and  the  following  by  Mas- 
singer: — "I  have  ever  found  you  a  true 
lovinof  friend  to  mee,  and  in  soe  small  a 
suite,  it  being  honest,  I  hope  you  will 
not  fail  us.     Philip  Massinger." 

The  most  of  the  earlier  works  of 
Massinger  were  lost,  and  in  a  very  cu- 
rious way.  These  works,  together  with 
forty  other  plays  of  different  authors, 
were  placed  in  the  care  of  Warburton, 
the  herald,  to  keep.  He  turned  them 
over  to  his  cook,  and  the  latter,  in  or- 
der to  save  her  master  the  expense  of 
buying  paper  with  which  to  cover  the 
pies  that  were  daily  baked  for  dinner, 
employed  these  manuscripts  for  that 
purpose.     When  Warburton    called  for 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  \\\ 

them,  they  were  found  to  have  been 
baked  with  the  pies  and  used  to  stop 
the  holes  in  the  kitchen  windows.  The 
following  were  among  those  lost  in 
this  way:  "Minerva's  Sacrifice,  or  the 
Forced  Lady  ;"  "  The  Noble  Choice, 
or  the  Orator  ;"  "  The  Wandering  Lov- 
ers, or  The  Painter  ;"  "  Philerezo  and 
Hippolita  ;  "  "Antonio  and  Vallia  ;  " 
"  The  Tyrant ;"  and  "  Fast  and  Wel- 
come." In  connection  with  Fletcher 
he  wrote  many  others.  The  earliest  of 
those  that  have  been  preserved  is  the 
"  Virgin  Martyr,"  a  tragedy.  The 
scenes  are  laid  in  Caesarea  and  founded 
upon  the  persecutions  of  the  Chris- 
tians in  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Dio- 
cletian. Then  comes  the  "  Old  Law," 
to  which  Middleton  and  Rowley  con- 
tributed. Then  the  "  Unnatural  Com- 
bat," then  "The  Bondman."  Of  the 
remaining  plays,  and  indeed  of  all  his 
productions,  the  most  famous  are:  "The 
Renegado  ;"  "  The  Fatal  Dowry  ;"  "The 
City  Madam,"  and  "  A  New  Way  to 
Pay  Old  Debts."  Of  all  these  the  one 
that  has  been  acted  much  the  most  fre- 
quently, and  upon  the  whole  has  been 


112  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

the  favorite  with  those  who  visit  the 
theatre,  is  the  last.  The  character  of 
Sir  Giles  Overreach  was  made  famous 
by  Keane,  the  actor,  and  has  ever 
since  been  greatly  admired  when  rep- 
resented by  a  man  of  abilities.  In 
it  Edwin  Booth  did  some  of  his  best 
work. 

Massinger  stands  very  nearly  on  a 
level  with  that  second  rank  of  drama- 
tists after  Shakespeare.  Of  all  these 
he  was  the  most  serious.  The  eternal 
struggle  with  poverty,  and  even  with 
hunger,  weighed  down  a  spirit  that  was 
naturally  serious.  His  tragedies  are  quite 
superior  to  his  comedies.  In  pathos  he 
is  far  superior  to  Jonson,  and  in  the  ar- 
rangement of  his  plots  he  is  often  equal 
to  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  In  his  com- 
edies it  is  easy  to  see  the  difficulty 
with  which  he  who  was  so  unhappy 
could  create  scenes  and  words  for 
others'  merriment.  No  writer  for  the 
stage  was  ever  more  unfitted  for  the 
obscenities  which  comedy  then,  in  or- 
der to  be  fully  successful,  seemed  to 
need.  The  merriment  which  he  created 
came  from  a  mind  and  heart  that  could 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  113 

have  no  participancy  in  it.  But  he 
must  make  the  merriment  or  die  in 
jail  or  perish  in  a  garret,  and  he  there- 
fore dashed  off  his  comedies  with  a 
coarseness  of  language  which  we  know 
must  have  disgusted  him  as  much  as 
they  disgust  us.  In  spite  of  their 
being  comedies,  there  is  a  vein  of  se- 
riousness running  through  them  all, 
which  has  led  to  their  being  called  by 
the  name  of   tragi-comedies. 

There  are  few  things  which  the  lit- 
erary public  have  more  regretted  than 
the  destruction  of  Massinger's  early 
dramas.  At  the  period  of  the  appear- 
ance of  "The  Virgin  Martyr,"  he  was 
nearly  forty  years  old.  His  plays  were 
quite  numerous  and  in  those  twenty 
years  of  a  man's  best  time,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  ten  years  from  thirty  to  forty, 
the  greatest  efforts  of  his  genius  must 
have  been  exerted.  If  we  could  have 
those  works  restored,  it  is  very  probable 
that  the  judgment  of  the  world  would 
no  longer  hesitate  whether  to  assign  him 
to  the  place  next  above  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher  and  Jonson  or  next  below 
them. 

L.L.-8 


114  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

Of  all  the  early  dramatists,  Massin- 
ger's  allusion  to  religious  subjects  are 
the  least  to  be  censured.  Coarse  and 
obscene  indeed  he  is  sometimes,  but 
never  profane.  The  wars  with  the  Puri- 
tans made  the  stage  a  place  where 
pious  men  could  less  and  less  resort. 
But  Massinger,  who  was  the  most 
serious  of  all  the  play  writers,  abstained 
from  that  worst  form  of  incivility — ■ 
sacrilege. 

He  remained  poor  always.  He  died 
in  1640.  We  know  almost  nothing 
about  his  connections  with  other  persons. 
He  seems  to  have  been  without  family, 
without  friends,  and  even  without 
acquaintances  beyortJfJ^^s^alWiircle  of 
the  comedians^-^^^oboay  wjis^pregent  at 
his  death.    He-we'nt-t"6  becl/efte  nidht  and 

Z    v     f  i 

was  found  pt£re  dead  »the.next 
He  was  Uuru3tK  in  Sf.  Mar^r  Overy's 
Church.  The  sexton  •rrpfcde  this  entry 
"  March  20,  l^^WW,  buried,  Philip 
Massinger  —  A  Stranger."  As  there 
was  nobody  to  close  his  eyes  when  he 
died,  so  there  were  none  to  weep  when 
he  was  buried.  The  poor  comedians 
went  along  to  help  in  that  last  business; 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  H5 

but  they  had  their  own  sorrows,  and 
some  of  them  thought,  probably,  that 
Massinger,  now  lying  so  quiet  under  the 
little  church,  might  be  better  off  than 
themselves. 

Massinger,  as  a  playwright,  has  always 
been  regarded  among  the  highest.  He 
was  particularly  happy  in  introductions 
that  served  to  engage  interested  atten- 
tion from  the  playgoers.  If  he  had  not 
felt  himself  constrained  to  conform  to 
popular  tastes  he  would  have  accom- 
plished much  greater  things.  This  kept 
him  from  the  profound  study  of  human 
nature  and  accurate  portrayal  of  it,  of 
which  he  was  abundantly  capable.  Great 
passions  he  did  hot  delineate  as  well  as 
minor.  The  grave  and  the  dignified 
he  expressed  as  "well  as  the  best. 
His  Camiola  in  "-The  Maid  of  Honor" 
is  one  of  the  finest*  impersonations 
ever  conceived.  That  is  a  perfect 
scene  wherein,  appearing  before  the 
bad  king  she  is  expected  to  kneel,  she 
says: 

"  With  your  leave,  I  must  not  kneel,  Sir, 
While  I  reply  to  this :  but  thus  rise  up 
In  my  defense,  and  tell  you,  as  a  man, 
(Since  when  you  are  unjust,  the  deity 


116  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

Which  you  may  challenge  as  a  king,  parts  from 

you), 
'Twas  never  read  in  holy  writ  or  moral, 
That  subjects  on  their  loyalty  were  obliged 
To  love  their  sovereign's  vices." 

Of  all  the  dramatists  in  his  time  he 
was  the  cleanest  in  character,  manners, 
and  words  ;  and  for  that  he  lived  apart 
from  them  and  died  friendless  and 
alone. 


Note.— The  Ober  Ammergau  Passion  Play,  in  its 
revival  from  time  to  time,  is  the  last  remnant  of 
the  Miracle  Plays. 


French  Literature. 


(117) 


TRENCH    LITERATURE 

«•« 
i. 

The   Revival  in  France. 

HE  south  of  France  being  settled 
by  the  Visigoths,  the  mildest  of  the 
northern  barbarians,  and  from  its  geo- 
graphical position  and  its  climate  being 
less  used  to  exciting  themes,  had  its 
earliest  literary  development  in  the 
songs  of  the  tender  passion.  While  the 
poets  of  Spain  sang  of  wars  and  adven- 
tures with  the  Moors,  and  celebrated  the 
heroes  of  the  battlefields,  the  trou- 
badours sang  of  fair  ladies. 

The  gaiety  of  this  early  French  lit- 
erature has  never  entirely  passed  away, 
and  the  Frenchman  of  to-day  is  still  a 
genuine  descendant  of  that  race,  ever 
distinguished  as  the  most  polite  and 
impressionable  of  modern  peoples. 

In  these  present  studies  of  French 
literature,  T  propose  to  begin  at  a  com- 

(119) 


120  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

paratively  late  period,  when  the  founding 
of  the  French  Academy  under  Richelieu 
established  at  Paris  the  center  of  the 
literature  of  all  Europe  ;  with  a  pre- 
liminary notice,  however,  of  one  writer, 
anterior  to  this  period,  who  in  one  spe- 
cies of  writing  was  a  leader  and  fore- 
runner to  all  Europe. 

This  was  Montaigne,  the  father  of  the 
Essayists.  This  singular  son  of  a  sin- 
gular father  probably  little  foresaw  the 
fame  which  he  was  to  acquire.  His 
father  had  him  taught  Latin  in  his  child- 
hood, exclusive  of  any  other  tongue,  so 
that  Latin  became  his  vernacular,  and 
he  had  afterwards  to  learn  French  as  a 
foreign  language.  First  he  became  an 
advocate;  but  the  tumultuous  times  of 
the  League  coming  on  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  III.,  being  a  man  of  peaceful 
disposition  he  retired  from  all  active  pur- 
suits to  his  estate,  and  the  time  he  had 
left  from  travel  was  devoted  to  that 
desultory  sort  of  writing  to  which  he 
gave,  what  was  intended  to  be  considered 
a  modest  title,  the  name  of  "  Essai." 

Essai,  as  you  are  aware,  means  an 
attempt,  a  partial  consideration  of  a  sub- 


FREXCH  LITERATURE.  121 

ject  which  deserves  more  extended  dis- 
cussion, either  from  abler  hands  or  from 
the  same  in  more  enlarged  opportunities. 
The  term  has  gradually  been  adopted 
as  applicable  to  short  disquisitions  upon 
all  varieties  of  subjects,  whether  of 
morals,  politics,  literature,  art  or  com- 
mon life. 

The  very  first  attempts  in  this  line  are 
amongst  the  most  interesting  and  spicy 
that  are  to  be  found  in  any  language. 
This  Frenchman,  in  the  retirement  of 
his  chateau,  when  the  rest  of  his  country- 
men were  in  the  turmoil  of  those  terrible 
and  continuous  civil  dissensions,  during 
a  period  of  many  years,  recorded  the  re- 
sults of  his  desultory  observations,  read- 
ings and  reflections,  in  a  style  so  piquant 
that  they  have  become  long  celebrated 
throughout  the  world.  His  essays  con- 
tain an  immense  amount  of  historical 
and  political  information  with  most  in- 
teresting, but  at  the  same  time,  most 
rambling  speculations. 

What  makes  them  more  interesting 
than  they  might  be  otherwise  is  the  ac- 
quaintance they  give  us  with  the  author 
himself.      Montaigne   seems  actually  to 


122  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

have  thought  aloud,  especially  when 
thinking  about  himself.  It  is  evident 
of  all  interesting  personages  to  Mon- 
taigne, the  most  so  was  Montaigne. 
His  garrulousness  of  himself,  even  of 
his  whims  and  infirmities,  are  a  source 
of  continual  entertainment  to  the 
reader.  His  vanity  is  not  in  the  slight- 
est degree  offensive,  because  of  the  en- 
tire simplicity  with  which  it  is  exhib- 
ited and  its  perfect  harmlessness.  In 
this  respect  he  is  as  pardonable  as  a 
mother  who  is  proud  of  her  first-born 
baby. 

Montaigne  is  one  of  the  writers  of 
France  whom  a  Frenchman  of  any 
amount  of  education  would  be  ashamed 
to  acknowledge  not  having  read.  It  is 
probable  that  no  author  of  modern 
times  has  been  so  universally  read  by 
his  own  countrymen,  a  fact  that  con- 
tinues until  now,  notwithstanding  that 
three  centuries  have  elapsed  since  his 
day.  Though  neither  profound  nor 
very  erudite,  neither  a  satirist  nor  a 
great  humorist,  he  has  been  among  his 
own  countrymen  the  most  popular  au- 
thor that  has  lived   in   France,  tlnd,  in 


FRENCH  LITER  A  TURE.  123 

this  respect,  his  match  is  not  to  be  found 
outside  of  it. 

The  revival  of  literature  was  prop- 
erly so  called  as  its  first  efforts  were 
directed  to  revive  Greek  and  Roman 
ideas  and  forms,  a  revival  which  in 
France  has  deviated  from  its  original 
workings  less  widely  than  in  any  other 
country  in  Europe.  France  has  ever 
since  been  chiefest  in  what  is  known 
as  classical  instead  of  romantic  litera- 
ture. 

A  series  of  poets,  respectable,  and 
some  with  a  degree  of  eminence,  came 
on,  beginning  with  what  is  known  as 
the  P16iade  consisting  of  Ronsard,  Dau- 
rat,  Du  Bellay,  Belleau,  Jodelle,  Bai'f 
and  Izard. 

It  was  in  the  following  style  that 
Ronsard,  the  leader  of  this  new  band, 
spoke  of  the  need  of  a  change  in  the 
national  literature  : 

"  Oh  how  I  long  to  see  these  springs 
wither  ;  to  chastise  these  small  youths  ; 
to  beat  these  attempts  to  dry  up  these 
fountains.  How  I  wish  these  forlorn 
ones ;  these  humble  expectants ;  these 
exiles  from  bliss ;  these  slaves  ;  these 
obstructionists  were  packed  back  again 


124  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

to  the  Round  Table!  Leave  all  these 
old  French  poems  to  the  floral  Games  of 
Toulouse, — such  as  rondeaus,  ballads, 
royal  songs,  lays,  and  other  such 
spicy  things,  which  corrupt  the  taste 
of  our  language  and  are  of  no  other 
value  than  to  bear  witness  to  our 
ignorance.  Be  assured,  my  readers, 
that  he  will  be  the  genuine  poet, 
whom  I  look  for  in  our  language, 
who  shall  make  me  indignant,  shall 
sooth  and  rejoice  me,  shall  cause  me  to 
grieve,  to  love,  to  hate,  to  wonder,  to 
be  astounded  ;  in  short,  who  shall  hold 
the  bridle  of  my  affections,  turning  me 
to  this  side  or  that  at  his  pleasure." 

Here  we  see  what  a  change  has  come 
from  the  time  when  these  gentle  poets 
of  Provence  were  the  masters  of  song. 
The  new  enthusiasm  was  destined  to 
make  a  magnificent  career.  But  it  has 
been  a  strange  career,  and  it  has  been 
less  great  than  it  would  have  been,  but 
for  a  sort  of  despotism  in  France,  polit- 
ical and  literary,  which,  while  it  has 
accomplished  great  things  in  some  re- 
spects, served  to  hamper  literary  and 
especially  poetic  genius,  by  requiring 
it  to  follow  too  closely  this  first  imita- 
tion of  the  classics. 


FRENCH  LITER  A  TV  RE.  125 

Classicism  has  forever  since  the  times 
of  the  Pleiacle  been  the  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  French  literature,  espe- 
cially dramatic,  and  though  many  men 
of  genius  have  endeavored  to  free 
themselves  from  this  despotism  and  set 
out  upon  a  new  and  independent  career, 
such  efforts  have  been  discouraged,  and 
the  French  drama  of  to-day  is  yet,  to 
some  degree,  an  imitation  of  that  of 
Terence,  Plautus  and  Seneca,  who  were 
themselves  imitators  of  the  Greek  dram- 
atists. 

Let  us  briefly  consider  the  history  of 
this  literary  dynasty  which  made  Paris 
so  entirely  the  capital  of  France  —  the 
capital  more  absorbingly  so  than  any 
city  has  become  in  any  other  country. 
It  began  in  circumstances  peculiarly  in- 
teresting, in  that  they  show  what  benign 
influence  in  a  most  corrupt  society  may 
be  exerted  by  even  one  gifted,  high-spir- 
ited and  pure-minded  woman. 

The  court  of  France  had  been  cor- 
rupted by  those  three  woman,  Catherine 
de  Medici,  Marie  de  Medici  and  Mar- 
guerite de  Valois,  to  a  degree  that  is 
now  appalling  and  almost  incredible  to 


126  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

read  about.  During  the  reign  of  Henry 
IV.,  Louis  XIII.,  and  part  of  that  of 
Louis  XIV.,  this  world,  except  probably 
during  some  of  the  times  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  has  never  seen  as  much  contrast 
between  the  lawlessness  and  luxurious- 
ness  of  the  great,  and  the  squalor,  pov- 
erty and  misery  of  the  lowly — a  con- 
trast that  culminated  in  the  war  of  the 
Fronde,  in  which  the  common  people, 
driven  to  madness  by  their  wrongs  and 
sufferings,  rose  against  the  government 
and  produced  that  chaos  which  resulted 
.in  a  state  of  literature  like  that  of  pol- 
itics. 

In  this  state  of  things  Catherine  de 
Vivonne,  a  young  lady  of  Italy,  was 
married  to  the  Marquis  de  Rambouillet. 
Disgusted  with  the  manners  and  the 
morals  of  the  court,  this  beautiful,  noble- 
minded  woman,  while  yet  young,  not  far 
beyond  twenty  years  of  age,  retired  to 
her  husband's  private  house,  and  there 
for  many  years  received  and  entertained 
the  best  and  purest  literary  talent  among 
the  men  and  women  of  Paris.  As  these  re- 
unions increased  she  had  built  a  splendid 
mansion,  destined  forever  afterwards  to 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  127 

be  celebrated  as  the  Hotel  de  Rambou- 
illet.  The  leading  literary  genius  of 
literature  then  was  Malherbe,  and,  as  the 
favorite  of  the  Marquise,  he  led  in  that 
encouragement  to  letters  which  was  to 
exert  so  signal  an  influence.  At  this 
Hotel  all  literary  men  were  received, 
whatever  might  be  their  social  position, 
unless  their  manners  were  such  as  to 
shock  that  delicacy  which  among  the 
best  aristocracy  was  the  perfection  of 
good  breeding. 

The  impulse  given  to  literature,  under 
the  auspices  of  this  remarkable  woman, 
was  incalculably  great  and  lasting.  It 
was  only  in  her  old  age  when  her  crown 
descended  to  her  daughter,  the  Marquise 
de  Montausier,  that  an  artificiality  and 
an  affectation  found  their  way  among 
them  which  induced  the  epithet  of  "  pre- 
cieuse,"  and  drew  upon  them  a  ridicule 
that  was  fatal. 

Julie,  the  daughter  and  successor 
of  Catherine  de  Vivonne,  inherited 
all  the  virtue  but  not  the  judgment 
and  the  taste  of  her  mother.  It  had 
been  better  probably  for  Mademoi- 
selle if  she  had    married    the    Marquis 


128  LECTURES  ON  LITER  A  TUBE. 

sooner.  He  had  been  a  long  and 
faithful  lover,  but  Julie  delighted  more 
and  more  in  the  homage  which  she 
received  from  men  and  women  as  the 
heir  apparent  to  the  Kingdom  of  the 
Rambouillet.  Under  her  rule  the  ro- 
mancers were  the  favorites.  Of  these 
the  chief  was  Mademoiselle  Scuderi. 
She  it  was  who  became  the  head  and 
leader  of  that  school  of  romanticists  in 
France,  which  refined  the  art  of  love, 
and  the  rules  of  manners  and  senti- 
ments, to  a  degree  that  their  fall  must 
come  in  time  when  the  public  taste 
should  become  educated  sufficiently  to 
discover  and  grow  tired  of  their  extrav- 
agances. Clelie,  the  last  and  most 
notable  of  Scuderi's  novels,  was  pro- 
duced in  the  year  of  the  death  of  the 
Marquise  de  Rambouillet. 

The  faithful  Montausier  courted  and 
courted,  year  after  year,  years  after 
years,  but  Julie  put  him  off  and  put 
him  off.  He  had  gotten  almost  every 
poet  in  France  to  write  verses  in  her 
praise,  which  he  had  gathered  into  an 
album  and  called  Guirland  de,  Julie. 
Yet  it  was  not    until    four  years  after 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  129 

the  completion  and  presentation  of  this 
Guirland  that  she  at  last  yielded  to 
his  entreaties  and  became  the  Mar- 
quise de  Montausier,  and  then  she  was 
thirty-eight  years  old. 

The  Precieuse  soon  afterwards  lost 
their  prestige  and  the  dynasty  of  let- 
ters passed  into  stronger  hands.  But 
the  example  of  the  Marquise  de  Ram- 
bouillet  had  this  effect  among  others 
— it  established  for  woman  in  France  an 
influence  in  literature  that  remains  to 
this  day,  and  of  a  kind  and  impor- 
tance that  are  known  nowhere  else. 

Among  the  women  who  were  of  this 
coterie,  I  mention  especially  Madame 
de  Sevigne,  who,  though  less  courted  in 
her  day  than  Mademoiselle  Scuderi,  has 
become  far  more  celebrated  since,  es- 
pecially as  being  the  most  entertain- 
ing letter  writer,  not  only  of  her 
country,  but  of  all  countries;  not  only 
of  her  generation,  but  of  all  genera- 
tions. 

It  is  curious  to  think  how  few  of  the 
letters  —  the  private,  friendly,  gossipy 
correspondence  —  of  men  of  letters  are 
interesting.     This    faculty    seems    the 

L.L.— 9 


130  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

very  rarest.  After  Madame  de  Se- 
vigne  in  France,  and  Charles  Lamb 
in  England,  the  way  is  long  to  find 
the  next  whose  letters  have  a  charm 
that  it  is  a  cordial  pleasure  to  yield  to. 

Of  the  habituees  of  the  H6tel  de  Ram- 
bouillet,  was  a  young  man  of  illustrious 
family,  who,  although  he  was  but  two 
and  twenty  years  of  age,  was  already  a 
bishop,  and  destined  soon  for  the  car- 
dinalate  and  for  a  greater  career  than 
any  man,  not  a  monarch,  has  made  in 
modern  times.  This  was  the  Bishop  of 
Lutjon,  afterwards  Cardinal  Richelieu. 
It  would  be  interesting  to  consider  the 
political  career  of  this  most  remarkable 
man,  who,  under  Louis  XIII. ,  subdued 
the  enemies  of  the  crown  of  France  at 
home  and  abroad,  and  consolidated  its 
government  in  time  for  the  subsequent 
great  achievements  of  le  Grande  Mon- 
arque,  Louis  XIV.  But  I  must  speak 
only  of  his  connection  with  the  literary 
movement  of  his  time  and  the  direction 
which  his  genius  gave  to  it. 

With  all  the  ambition  that  has  been 
ascribed  to  Cardinal  Richelieu,  it  is  be- 
lieved that  the  literary  element  was  the 


FRENCH  L I TERA  T  URE.  131 

chief.  He  had  sat,  when  a  young  man, 
at  the  feet  of  Madame  Rambouillet, 
and  listened  with  delight  to  the  wit, 
the  poetry  and  the  prose  of  the  gifted 
men  and  women  who  were  accustomed 
to  assemble  there.  Partaking  of  the 
ambition  which  these  reunions  inspired, 
he  wrote,  besides  some  religious  pam- 
phlets, a  tragi-comedy  which  he  named 
"Mirame." 

When  he  rose  to  power  and  had 
erected  that  splendid  palace  named  by 
him  the  Palais  Cardinale,  but  after- 
wards known  as  the  Palais  Royale, 
which  is  so  full  of  historic  interest,  he 
added  to  it  a  theatre  for  the  produc- 
tion of  his  drama.  It  must  succeed — 
for  it  was  the  work  of  the  greatest  min- 
ister in  Europe,  presented  to  a  select 
audience  of  friends  and  dependents  in 
his  own  residence,  which  rivaled  that 
of  the  greatest  monarchs  of  the  earth. 
The  applause  was  so  great  that  the 
author  was  transported  with  delight, 
leaned  out  of  his  box  in  order  to  give 
to'the  delighted  audience  a  good  view 
of  himself,  and  felt  that  he  had  been 
born  for  as  great  a  work  in  literature  as 


132  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

in  politics  and  religion.  The  cares  of 
state  would  not  allow  further  author- 
ship at  his  hands,  but  he  could  assume, 
and  he  did  assume,  its  direction  in  the 
hands  of  others,  and  established  that 
regime,  partly  for  good  and  partly  for 
evil,  by  which  the  literary  endeavors  of 
the  French  have  ever  since  been  for  the 
most  part  controlled. 

Among  the  thoughts  that  had  been 
struck  out  from  the  discussions  of  the 
Hotel  de  Rambouillet  was  that  of  found- 
ing some  great  central  authority  in  mat- 
ters of  literary  taste,  especially  regarding 
the  proper  development  of  the  French 
language.  A  thought  of  this  sort  had, 
as  early  as  1570,  been  in  the  mind  of 
Ba'if,  a  disciple  of  the  school  of  which 
Ronsard  was  the  head.  This  idea  was 
the  establishment  of  a  club  for  the  study 
and  proper  development  of  French 
grammar  and  orthography.  But,  in  the 
political  convulsions  of  those  and  suc- 
ceeding times,  nothing  or  little  was  done 
in  this  direction. 

Reopened  in  times  of  quiet  in  the 
minds  of  men  like  Rivault,  Valentin, 
Conrart,  and  others,    the    all-absorbing 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  133 

mind  of  Richelieu  seized  upon  it;  and 
in  1634  he  established  the  Academy  of 
France,  at  once  the  proudest,  most 
authoritative,  and  most  able  literary 
corporation  that  was  ever  instituted. 
The  avowed  object  of  the  institution 
of  the  Academy  was  the  perfecting  of 
the  French  language;  and  the  making 
of  it  the  Court  language  of  the  world. 
It  is  curious  to  consider  what  endless 
labors,  what  minute  painstakings,  were 
employed  upon  such  a  work. 

It  was  nearly  half  a  century  before 
the  publication  of  the  dictionary,  for 
which  a  committee  and  an  editor  were 
early  appointed.  The  vast  length  of 
time  consumed  in  this  work,  on  that  of 
a  purely  philological  nature,  provoked 
many  a  ridiculous  jest  from  those  who 
sought  reputation  outside  of  the  Acad- 
emy, as  the  following: 

"  Six  months  they've  been  engaged  on  F, 
O,  that  my  fate  would  guaranty 
That  I  should  keep  alive  till  G." 

The  establishment  of  such  an  institu- 
tion as  the  Academy  must  necessarily 
exert  a  commanding  influence  upon  the 
national  literature.     At  the  most  splen- 


134  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

did  capital  in  Europe,  where  courtly 
manners  and  courtly  sentiments  under 
that  magnificient  minister  were  risen  to 
the  highest  possible  height,  the  develop- 
ment it  gave  to  the  French  language, 
naturally  rich  in  polite  expressions,  must 
soon  place  it  at  the  head  of  the  living 
languages  of  the  world.  Under  this  in- 
fluence it  did  become,  and  has  continued 
to  be,  the  diplomatic  language  of  Eu- 
rope and  America. 

The  times  were  now  favorable  for 
great  literary  achievements.  Richelieu 
had  established  the  French  monarchy 
upon  a  basis  that  was  to  endure  for  two 
centuries;  he  had  established  the  French 
Academy  that  was  to  be  for  all  time 
the  arbiter  of  literary  excellence.  The 
works  of  literary  men  heretofore  had 
been  in  great  part  desultory,  owing 
mostly  to  the  uncertainties  of  the  re- 
sults of  successive  political  struggles. 
The  unbecoming1  levities  that  charac- 
terized  the  Mysteries  and  Moralities, 
the  Sacred  Comedy,  as  they  were  some- 
times called,  had  been  prohibited  rep- 
resentation. A  national  drama  had 
been  started  both  in  Spain  and  in  Eng- 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  135 

land,  which,  though  widely  different 
in  one  and  the  other,  was  eminently 
national  and  suited  to  the  different 
characteristics  of  the  two  nations. 

It  was  evidently  a  misfortune  for  the 
French  drama,  a  misfortune  from  which 
it  never  recovered,  that  its  rise  was  con- 
temporary with  the  establishment  of 
the  French  Academy,  whose  strange 
and  persistent  adherence  to  classical 
rules  obstructed  that  freedom  which 
was  so  essential  to  the  growth  of  this, 
the  most  important,  department  of  a 
nation's  literature. 

At  the  time  of  the  establishment  of 
that  celebrated  institution  a  very  great 
man  was  then  living,  who,  though  less 
than  thirty  years  of  age,  had  already 
exhibited  the  possession  of  intellectual 
powers  which  if  encouraged,  or  if  not 
hindered,  were  equal  to  the  very  great- 
est achievements.  He  was  not  a  Pari- 
sian and  of  that  circle  who  met  at  stated 
times  in  the  splendid  salons  of  the  Mar- 
quise de  Rambouillet.  He  was  from 
Rouen  in  the  North  Country,  the  cen- 
tral place  of  the  ancient  trouveres,  as 
the  poets  of  that  region  were  called,  in 


136  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

contradistinction  to  the  troubadours  of 
the  South.  Like  the  great  dramatists 
of  Spain,  Pierre  Corneille  was  religious 
in  the  tone  of  his  being,  and  his  first 
literary  works  were  of  a  religious  char- 
acter. He  never  took  orders,  like  Lope 
de  Vega  and  Calderon,  but  the  serious 
tone  remained  with  him  always.  His 
first  works  were  translations  in  verse  of 
the  "Office  of  the  Holy  Virgin"  and 
the  "Imitation  of  Christ"  of  Thomas  a 
Kempis. 

A  curious  accident  that  was  which 
made  Corneille  a  dramatist.  He  had 
fallen  in  love  with  a  young  lady  to 
whom  he  introduced  a  friend  in  order  to 
aid  him  in  his  suit.  That  friend  pleaded 
the  cause  as  well  as  he  could  ;  but 
the  lady  one  day  hinted  to  him  that 
if  he  were  to  speak  in  his  own  be- 
half, should  he  be  so  inclined,  his 
words  might  be  put  to  better  purpose 
and  obtain  more  satisfactory  results. 
Upon  this  hint  he  substituted  his  own 
for  the  name  of  his  friend,  and  his  suit 
prevailed.  Fortunately  for  his  own 
peace  Corneille  made  a  joke  instead  of  a 
serious  matter  of  the  affair,  and  the  more 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  137 

easily  because  in  another  young  woman 
he  soon  found  what  compensated  .him 
for  the  loss  of  the  first.  Her  name 
was  Mademoiselle  Milet.  The  rejected 
suitor  wrote  his  first  drama  on  the  oc- 
casion, and,  in  honor  of  the  gay  young 
female,  slightly  transposing  her  name, 
called  it  "Melite."  The  facility  with 
which  this  was  produced  led  him  to 
other  works,  partly  serious,  partly  sport- 
ive, until  the  year  1636,  when  he  was 
just  thirty  years  old.  Then  he  pro- 
duced his  tragedy  of  "  The  Cid." 

This  is  one  of  the  greatest  achieve- 
ments of  human  genius.  In  full  sym- 
pathy with  that  ardent  admiration  which 
the  Spanish,  and  indeed  all  Christian 
people,  felt  for  the  great  Campeador, 
who  had  so  often  defeated  the  Moors, 
the  common  enemy  of  Spain  and  Chris- 
tendom, he  selected  him  for  his  hero  ; 
and,  following  the  dictates  of  his  own 
genius,  presented  him  in  those  attitudes 
which  to  such  a  man  were  seen  to  be 
the  best  for  the  highest  purposes  of 
tragedy.  It  seemed  as  if  a  great  ca- 
reer was  before  this  young  dramatist 
from  the  North.     Indeed  there  was,  still 


138  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

it  was  less  than  it  might  have  been, 
and  could  have  been,  but  for  the  tram- 
mels that  were  placed  upon  his  muse. 
When  we  place  "  The  Cid  "  of  Corneille 
by  the  side  of  the  "  Mirame  "  of  Riche- 
lieu, the  distance  is  great  between 
them  in  the  elements  which  appeal  to 
the  serious,  ardent  emotions  of  our 
hearts,  that  genuine  pathos  which  is 
the  best  characteristic  of  the  tragedy. 
But  there  was  a  greater  distance  be- 
tween them  in  another  respect,  which 
then  and  ever  afterwards  in  France  has 
been  considered  superior,  namely,  in 
relative  conformity  to  the  standard  of 
the  Greeks  —  a  standard  which  in  all 
ages  in  that  country  has  never  been 
departed  from.  In  this  respect  the 
"  Mirame  "  was  the  superior.  It  had  been 
made  to  conform  evenly  with  those 
models  which  a  different  people  with 
a  different  religion  and  a  different  civ- 
ilization had  made,  but  which  had  be- 
come adopted  in  France  in  defiance  of 
all  those  demands  which  were  made 
by  the  conditions  of  modern  peoples. 
The  necessity  of  following  this  stand- 
ard, to  a  man,   who,   like  Shakespeare, 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  139 

was  not  one  to  be  guided  by  any 
special  school,  hindered  Corneille  from 
being  what  he  was  born  capable  to 
be  —  almost,  if  not  fully,  equal  to 
him. 

It  was  in  vain  that  the  nobles  of 
France,  and  the  gentlemen,  and  the  cit- 
izens came  in  crowds  to  see  this  great 
drama,  and  burned  with  passion  at  the 
recital  of  the  brave  deeds  of  the  mighty 
Cid.  "The  Cid"  lacked  the  unities  of 
the  tragedies  of  Sophocles  and  Euripides 
and  Seneca,  and  therefore  the  critics  of 
Paris,  at  the  instance  of  Richelieu  and 
the  Academy,  condemned  it.  The  very 
passion  that  this  drama  displayed  was 
one  of  the  matters  that  was  objected  to 
by  the  Academy.  Richelieu  had  asked 
of  them  their  criticism,  and  that  request 
was  properly  understood  to  mean  an 
order  for  condemnation.  What  was 
required  of  a  tragedy,  according  to 
their  views,  was  a  stateliness,  a  dignified 
grief  in  misfortune,  such  as  had  been 
felt  by  the  demigods  and  heroes  of  the 
ancient  drama,  as  they  silently  and 
composedly  yielded  at  length  before 
the    decrees     of    fate.      These     curious 


\40  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

words  occur  in  the  sentence  pronounced 
by  the  Academy  : 

"  A  piece  is  only  good  when  it  gives 
a  reasonable  contentment,  that  is,  when 
it  satisfies  the  learned  as  well  as  the 
people.  We  ought  to  inquire,  not 
whether  "  The  Cid "  has  pleased,  but 
whether  it  ought  to  have  pleased." 

Now  what  did  Corneille  do  after 
the  publication  of  his  sentence?  We 
should  have  thought  that  he  would 
have  appealed  to  the  people,  who  at 
last  are  the  rightful  arbiters  of  the 
drama,  and  who,  everywhere,  except  in 
France,  are  its  real  arbiters.  For  after 
this  sentence  they  continued  to  applaud 
as  before.  But  he  did  no  such  thing. 
Before  those  great  tribunals,  the  court 
and  the  Academy,  even  the  great  Cor- 
neille did  not  undertake  to  stand  with 
defiance.  He  went  to  work  and  pro- 
duced a  series  of  dramas  on  the  mode) 
prescribed  by  the  court  and  the  Acad- 
emy, the  first  of  which,  "  The  Horaces" 
whether  in  revenge  or  in  subserviency, 
it  is  not  known,  he  dedicated  to  Car- 
dinal Richelieu.  These  tragedies  are 
the  more  to  be  admired  because  they 
show  what  may  be  done  by  a  man  of 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  141 

/ofty  genius  who  feels  himself  bound,  in 
conformity  to  irresistibly  powerful  influ- 
ences, to  gauge  his  work  by  a  double 
standard — the  parts  of  which  are  hostile 
between  themselves. 

Among  them  ."China "-has  been  re- 
garded as  the  most  successful  in  that 
difficult  endeavor.  It  is  a  play  which 
though  observing  the  rules  of  the  clas- 
sic drama,  yet  teems  in  many  scenes 
with  true  pathos  and  dramatic  incident 
which  are  the  offspring  of  modern,  in 
contradistinction  to  ancient,  living. 
One  of  the  most  remarkable  characters 
in  all  dramatic  literature  is  the  ^Emilia 
of  "Cinna."  The  Emperor  Augustus  had 
murdered  her  father,  but  his  favorite, 
whom  he  loved  and  confided  in  so  much 
as  to  desire  to  divide  with  him  the  Em- 
pire, was  her  lover,  Cinna.  The  con- 
flict in  this  noble  young  woman's  mind 
between  her  love  for  Cinna  and  her  de- 
sire to  be  revenged  on  the  Emperor  is 
managed  with  distinguished  ability. 
There  are  passages  in  this  drama  that  are 
equal  to  the   best  in  any  dramatic  poet. 

Yet  this  enforced  compliance  with 
rules  which  he  could  not  fail  to  know 


142  LECTURES  ON  LITER  A  TURE. 

as  exacting  and  wrong  certainly  ham- 
pered his  genius,  and  to  some  degree 
cooled  that  poetic  passion  which  was 
his  by  nature,  and  which  is  so  necessary 
for  the  highest  success.  In  taking  his 
heroes  and  heroines  from  Grecian  and 
Roman  story,  he  could  not  but  impart  to 
them  that  too  stately  carriage  which  is 
never  consistent  with  true  pathos.  In 
his  hands  the  Roman  remains,  not  quite 
but  almost,  a  Roman  still,  an  inevitable 
consequence  to  the  dramatist,  who,  in- 
stead of  addressing  the  men  and  women 
of  his  own  generation,  imagines  himself 
addressing  those  of  two  thousand  years 
ago. 

The  man  who  stood  and  who  yet  stands 
at  the  head  of  the  classic,  the  principal 
school  of  French  literature,  is  Boileau. 
If  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.  may  properly 
be  called  the  Augustan  age  of  French 
literature,  Boileau  with  even  greater 
fitness  may  be  said  to  -be,  as  he  has  of- 
ten been  styled,  the  Horace  of  that  age. 
With  powers  thought  to  be  sufficient  for 
the  production  of  a  great  epic,  Boileau 
chose  rather  to  be  a  Horace  than  a  Virgil. 

His  perfect  education,  his    thorough 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  143 

command  of  the  French  language,  his 
eminently  critical  mind,  led  him  to  be  a 
corrector  of  the  faults  of  others'  works 
rather  than  a  producer  of  great  mas- 
terpieces of  his  own.  His  first  produc- 
tion was  his  satires ;  and  then  his 
epistles.  With  a  freak  of  genius  like 
that  which  actuated  Pope  in  "The  Rape 
of  the  Lock,"  he  produced  his  mock 
heroic  epic  of  "  Lutrin,"  founded  on  the 
disputes  of  the  monks  of  Chartreux. 

His  satires  fall  below  those  of  Hor- 
ace ;  but  his  epistles  have  been  asserted 
to  be  the  best  of  their  kind  in  the  liter- 
ature of  all  ages.  It  was  as  a  critic 
that  Boileau  was  most  highly  esteemed. 
In  this  respect  he  was  without  a  rival 
in  his  day,  occupying  the  same  relative 
position  in  France  that  Dr.  Johnson  did 
in  England  a  century  later.  He  was 
not  only  powerful  like  Johnson,  but  he 
was  honest  like  him.  Although  a  cour- 
tier  he  was  never  a  sycophant  ;  and 
many  anecdotes  are  told  of  the  manly 
independence  which,  during  a  long 
service,  he  maintained  at  the  court  of 
the  most  willful  and  despotic  monarch 
that  ever  sat  upon  the  throne  of  France, 


II. 

The  Age  of  Louis  XIV. 

In  one  respect,  at  least,  the  age  of 
Louis  XIV.  was  fitly  called  the  Au- 
gustan age  of  French  Literature.  It 
took  its  name  from  that  great  mon- 
arch in  whose  person  were  united  all 
the  powers  of  the  empire  for  every  pur- 
pose, domestic  and  foreign.  In  the  Ro- 
man Empire  whoever  would  be  notable 
or  prosperous  must  repair  to  Rome  and 
solicit  patronage  from  the  great  and 
only  source  of  power.  Wherever  there 
was  a  man  of  talent,  whether  in  Gaul  or 
Hispania,  whether  in  Greece  or  Illyria, 
whether  in  Scythia  or  Thracia,  that  man 
came  to  Rome  and  laid  his  aims  and  his 
ambition  at  the  feet  of  the  Emperor 
Augustus  Cagsar,  and  thus  the  age, 
abounding  as  it  did  in  eminent  names, 
names  grown  eminent  under  the  pat- 
ronage of  that  potentate,  was  styled 
the  Augustan. 

So  it  was,  preeminently,  during  the 

(H4) 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  145 

period  of  Louis  XIV.,  the  longest  reign- 
ing, the  most  prosperous,  the  most  mag- 
nificent that  Europe  has  ever  seen.  For 
seventy-two  years  that  man  was  king  of 
the  French.  The  feudal  and  popular 
strifes  had  been  settled  by  Richelieu 
and  Mazarin  before  he  came  upon  the 
throne.  He  came,  too,  when  the  liter- 
ary renaissance  of  the  French  people 
had  gotten  fairly  under  way.  The 
Academy  was  fully  established,  the 
French  language  was  rising  under  its 
influence  to  become  the  most  polished 
and  courtly  of  human  tongues,  and  the 
reunions  at  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet 
and  the  Saturday  receptions  of  Made- 
moiselle Scuderi  had  served  already  to 
concentrate  at  Paris  the  greater  portion 
of  the  literary  talent  of  the  country. 
Never  was  there  a  young  monarch  so 
gifted  by  nature  and  manners  to  take 
the  lead  of  a  people  under  such  condi- 
tions. The  graces  of  his  person,  his 
royal  demeanor,  his  boundless  conde- 
scension and  munificence,  made  him  at 
once  the  idol  of  his  people;  and  the 
brilliant  success  of  his  foreign  wars  en- 
abled him  to  preserve  his  popularity  to 
L.L.— 10 


146  LECTl  'RES  ON  L I TERA  T  URE. 

the  very  last.  Yet  he  was  the  most  ar- 
bitrary, the  most  lofty-minded  monarch 
that  ever  sat  upon  the  French  throne. 
His  policy  was  early  foreshadowed, 
when,  on  an  occasion  while  his  minis- 
ters were  speaking  of  the  State,  he  cut 
them  short  with  the  words,  "  The  State, 
it  is  I." 

It  was  on  this  idea  that  he  constituted 
the  State,  that  the  power,  the  govern- 
ment, the  genius,  the  glory  of  France 
were  concentrated  in  himself,  which 
controlled  him  ever  afterwards,  and 
made  his  government  the  most  purely 
personal  that  any  country  in  Europe  has 
ever  had.  Already  Paris  had  become 
more  avowedly  a  capital  than  London, 
or  Vienna,  or  Madrid.  Such  had  been 
the  policy  of  the  controlling  spirits  of 
the  last  two  reigns. 

Under  Louis  XIV.  Paris  became 
everything  for  France.  The  residence 
of  the  grand  monarch  !  every  idea  that 
was  great  or  of  any  importance  must 
originate  there,  or  repair  there  for  de- 
velopment and  successful  operation ; 
every  man  of  genius,  of  whatever  kind, 
must  not  only  visit  the  capital,  but  there 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  147 

he  must  abide,  and  draw  the  supplies 
for  prosecuting  his  work  from  that  one 
grand  inexhaustible,  source  —  the  king. 

The  books  are  numberless  that  tell 
of  the  splendor  of  the  Court  of  Louis 
XIV.:  its  boundless  expensiveness;  its 
contrast  with  the  life  of  the  common 
people,  both  in  the  country  and  in  the 
towns.  The  great  wonder,  in  reading 
of  these  things  now,  is  how  long  this 
contrast  was  allowed  to  endure,  and 
how  unresistingly  a  brave  people  could 
tolerate  poverty,  oppression,  and  exac- 
tion in  order  to  sustain  these  splendors 
of  a  monarch  and  his  favorites.  But  of 
this  condition  we  are  not  to  speak,  ex- 
cept as  to  its  influence  upon  the  litera- 
ture of  the  nation.  It  is  marvelous  how 
that  literature  did  develop,  and  how  it 
was  directed  by  that  monarch  and  his 
court. 

In  the  time  of  the  Caesars  the  men 
of  letters  conceived  their  thoughts  in 
Rome.  There  they  put  them  upon  pa- 
per, or  if  elsewhere,  it  was,  as  in  the 
case  of  poor  Ovid,  because  of  their 
banishment,  wherein  they  longed  to  be 
recalled    to    the    capital.     The    themes 


148  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

for  Virgil  and  Horace  were  the  sover- 
eign himself,  or  his  ancestors,  fables 
among  the  demigods  ;  and  of  Seneca 
they  were  the  heroes  of  Grecian  story, 
all  of  royal  and  some  of  heavenly  de- 
scent. The  things  they  celebrated  in 
verse  were  such  as  were  meant  to  re- 
mind their  imperial  master  of  what  it 
was,  how  grand!  how  felicitous!  to  be 
the  monarch  of  a  great  people.  The 
works  which  they  created  were  master- 
pieces of  genius ;  they  were  destined  to 
endure  for  all  time  ;  they  represented 
to  perfection  the  height  of  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  times  in  which  they  were 
produced  ;  and  when,  in  the  overthrow 
of  that  civilization,  they  were  neglected 
and  cast  aside,  the  literature  of  the  new 
civilization  seemed  as  if  it  never  could 
begin  until  these  works  were  brought 
forth  again  and  the  love  and  admira- 
tion for  them  revived. 

Now,  in  France  this  revival  was  com- 
paratively late.  In  Spain  and  in  Italy 
it  had  taken  place  long  before ;  and 
those  nations,  in  time  exchanging  the 
ancient  models  for  those  of  romantic 
historic,   had    made    a  splendid  career, 


FRENCH  L  ITER.  I  TUR  E.  149 

which,  however,  endured  only  for  a  few 
generations.  Spanish  and  Italian  liter- 
ature were  in  their  decline  when  the 
French  first  began  on  its  full  career. 
Germany  had  no  national  literature ; 
and  the  English  were  forming  their 
own  on  its  own  isolated,  irregular 
methods.  And  in  this  we  can  perceive 
some  of  the  reasons  of  that  direction  to 
French  literature  given  first  by  Ron- 
sard  and  his  brethren  of  the  Pleiade, 
led  along  by  Richelieu,  and  finally  as- 
sumed and  concentrated  in  the  court  of 
Louis  XIV. 

The  men  who  controlled  the  opinions 
of  France,  believed  that  the  decline  of 
the  literature  of  Italy  and  Spain  was  to 
be  attributed  to  that  romantic  spirit 
which  had  led  these  nations  to  abandon 
Greek  and  Roman  forms,  and,  taking 
the  heroes  of  modern  Europe,  celebrate 
their  achievements  after  the  fashion  of 
the  first  Christian  lyric  poets,  even  as 
ancient  tragedy  had  risen  out  of  the 
lyrical  pieces  of  the  first  rude  minstrels 
of  Greece.  They  believed  that  for  a 
modern  literature  to  be  great,  and  to 
continue   great,   it   must    resume    these 


150  LECTURES  <>N  LITERATURE. 

ancient  models  which  seemed  to  be  per- 
fect, and  the  only  perfect  ones.  These 
opinions,  besides  the  examples  of  Spain 
and  Italy,  had  other  foundations  in  that 
arbitrary  policy  which,  during  several 
reigns,  had  been  forming  the  govern- 
ment of  France  upon  the  model  of  that 
of  the  Caesars,  under  which  all  the 
great  works  of  literary  genius  were  de- 
voted to  celebratinof  the  deeds  of  those 
with  whose  fortunes  only  the  great  of 
earth  were  in  sympathy. 

To  the  people  of  France,  the  com- 
mon people,  it  was  interesting  to  attend 
upon  representations  of  the  deeds  of 
the  brave  Christian  warrior,  who  had 
done  so  much  for  Spain  in  her  long 
mighty  struggles  with  the  Moors  ;  but 
to  that  court  at  Paris,  the  Cid  was  not 
a  man  to  be  thought  about  in  compari- 
son with  the  great  kings  of  Greek  and 
Roman  story  ;  and  so,  when  Corneille's 
first  and  greatest  tragedy  appeared,  the 
Academy,  at  the  instigation  of  the  Car- 
dinal minister,  inquired  not  whether  it 
had  pleased — for  it  had  pleased,  the 
people  wept  and  shouted  at  the  exploits 
of  the   great   captain  —  but  if  it  ought 


FRENCH  LITER  A  77  rRE.  151 

to  have  pleased.  And  they  decided 
that  it  ought  not ;  and  for  the  remain- 
der of  his  life,  as  we  have  seen,  Cor- 
neille,  so  far  as  possible,  was  made  to 
conform  to  the  exactions  of  those  who 
controlled  the  public  opinions  uf 
France. 

It  was  thus  that  began  in  France 
that  classicism,  as  it  has  always  been 
called,  which,  in  the  drama,  especially, 
at  least  the  serious  drama,  has  always 
prevailed  ;  and  which  has  rendered 
French  dramatic  literature,  in  spite  of 
the  greatness  of  some  of  the  men  who 
have  cultivated  it,  less  national  and  less 
considerable  than  that  of  any  European 
nation. 

RACINE. 

The  tragic  poet,  who  was  more  fully 
than  Corneille  the  production  of  the 
classicism  enjoined  by  the  court  of 
France,  was  Racine.  His  was  a  nature 
religious  like  that  of  Corneille,  but 
more  refined  and  tender.  Nearly  ex- 
actly contemporary  with  the  king,  and 
held  to  the  court  through  his  friend  the 
powerful  Boileau,  his  muse  early  sought 


152  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

out  the  great  names  in  classic  history 
and  fable.  His  first,  celebrated  in  the 
"  Thebai'de,"  were  the  unhappy  sons  of 
GEdipus,  long  ago  immortalized  by  the 
pen  of  Sophocles.  Then  came  his 
"Alexandre,"  with  Porus,  the  giant 
King  of  India ;  then  "  Andromaque," 
wife  of  the  great  Hector;  then  "Britah- 
nicus,"  telling  of  the  rivalry  between 
this  great  Roman  and  the  Emperor 
Nero  for  the  love  of  Junia;  then  "Bere- 
nice;" then  "Baiazet;"  then  "  Mithri- 
date;"  then  "Iphigenie;"then  "Phedre," 
the  miserable  wife  of  Theseus.  Later 
in  life  his  mind  turned  more  to  religious 

o 

thoughts,  and  he  wished  to  become  a 
monk  of  the  Order  of  the  Carthusians. 
Diverted  from  this  purpose,  he  chose 
for  his  themes  the  actions  of  Scripture 
characters,  and  produced  his  "  Esther 
and  Athalie." 

Like  Corneille,  Racine  was  qualified 
by  nature  for  the  greatest  heights  of 
tragedy,  if  his  genius,  like  Shake- 
speare's, could  have  been  unfettered. 
But  the  very  names  of  his  dramas  show, 
in  obedience  to  the  ruling-  ideas  of  his 
time,  that  he  considered  the  utmost  sue- 


FRENCH  L  IT  ERA  T  URE.  1 53 

cess  possible  to  modern  dramatic  effort 
was  an  approximation  to  the  works  of 
the  great  ancients.  Yet,  when  a  man 
of  genius  essays  to  work,  no  matter 
after  what  model,  he  will  accomplish 
great  things,  and  that  genius  will  assert 
itself  after  its  own  individual  and  inde- 
pendent bent  in  spite  of  the  trammels 
that  would  hold  it  in  an  ordered  way. 
We  have  seen  in  Corneille  how  passion, 
genuine,  natural  and  irregular,  would 
sometimes  burst  forth  into  utterance 
that  would  almost  put  to  the  blush  the 
solemn  dignity  of  the  ancient  drama. 
So  Racine,  though  professing  to  follow 
at  one  time  the  great  dramatists  and  at 
another  Corneille,  would  bring  out  the 
tenderness  of  his  own  nature,  that  drew 
tears  of  sympathy  which  the  pitiful  feel 
for  distress  in  all  conditions  of  life. 

In  such  a  condition  of  things,  with  a 
great  writer,  it  was  but  natural  that  his 
female  characters  should  surpass  the 
male.  A  good  woman,  gentle,  sensi- 
tive, pure-minded,  in  any  state  of  so- 
ciety is  the  type  of  her  class  every- 
where. There  may  be  several  kinds  of 
heroes.     A   hero   in   the   early   days   of 


154  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

Thebes,  or  of  Mycenae,  was  not  the 
same  with  a  hero  of  Spain  or  modern 
Italy.  But  a  good  woman,  such  as  the 
noble  wife  of  Hector,  may  illustrate  one 
age  as  well  as  another.  The  male  char- 
acters of  Racine,  though  bearing  such 
names  as  CEdipus  and  Pyrrhus,  and 
Theseus  and  Polynices,  were  at  last  the 
courtiers  of  that  palace*  of  Versailles, 
towering  far  above  whom  was  the 
Grande  Monarque,  whose  unapproach- 
able greatness  must  forever  keep  theirs 
in  subordination.  But  his  women  were 
the  types  of  excellent  womanhood,  which 
in  all  society  is  everywhere  the  same. 
A  fair  example  of  Racine's  female 
characters  is  Andromaque.  All  are 
familiar  with  the  history  of  this  woman, 
who,  in  the  palmy  days  of  Troy,  was 
the  wife  of  Hector,  the  eldest  and 
bravest  of  the  sons  of  Priam,  and  the 
mother  of  his  only  son,  Astyanax.  At 
the  fall  of  the  ancient  city  the  young 
widow  fell  into  the  hands  of  Pyrrhus, 
the  bastard  son  of  Achilles,  who  had 
slain  her  husband.  The  conqueror  fell 
in  love  with  his  captive,  though  he  was 
espoused    to     Hermione,     daughter    of 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  155 

Menelaus  and  Helen.  It  is  most  touch- 
ing to  witness  the  struggles  in  the  mind 
of  this  woman  between  the  respect  for 
the  dead  and  her  sense  of  duty  to  the 
living.  Andromaque,  daughter  of  Ee- 
tion  of  Cilicia,  had  been  noted  for  her 
affection  for  her  husband.  It  was  told 
of  her  that  she  used  to  feed  his  horses 
with  her  own  hand.  The  most  tender 
and  touching  episode  in  the  Iliad  is 
that  parting  scene  between  the  husband 
and  his  wife  when  he  went  forth  to  meet 
the  great  Achilles,  who  was  destined  to 
slay  him  and  drag  his  body  around  the 
walls  of  the  city.  Pyrrhus  offered  on 
the  one  hand  the  rebuilding  of  Troy 
and  the  placing  of  Astyanax,  her's  and 
Hector's  son,  upon  the  throne  ;  on  the 
other  hand  the  destruction  of  the  last 
remnant  of  the  Trojan  race.  What  will 
this  relict  of  a  brave  man,  and  the 
mother  of  an  only  son,  do  in  such  an 
emergency?  For  the  sake  of  her  son. 
too  young  to  feel  the  dishonor  and  the 
resentment,  looking  far  forward  to  his 
forgiveness  when  he  shall  be  restored 
to  the  throne  of  his  ancestors,  and  be 
thinking  of  her  in  the  shades  below,  her 


156  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

love  for  her  offspring  triumphs  over  her 
honor  for  her  departed  husband,  and 
she  gives  up  herself,  everything,  to  the 
base  conqueror.  In  accordance  with 
the  usages  of  the  classic  drama,  which 
required  the  preservation  of  the  unities 
of  time  and  place,  the  heroines  (like 
the  heroes)  must  have  their  confidential 
friends  with  whom  they  converse  in  the 
intervals  of  the  action  of  the  play.  In 
the  conversations  between  Andromaque 
and  her  confidante,  there  is  a  most 
touching  delicacy.  This  is  to  be  seen 
in  the  instructions  which  she  gives  as  to 
how  this  friend  is  to  speak  with  her  son 
when  she  —  his  mother  —  is  no  more. 
The  boy's  mind,  as  it  grows  from  child- 
hood forward,  is  to  be  kept  full  of  the 
images  of  his  great  father.  "  Tell  him," 
she  says,  in  effect,  "  of  what  manner  of 
man  his  father  was,  when  Troy  stood, 
and  he  was  her  main  bulwark.  Tell 
him  how  the  kings  and  mighty  men 
both  of  Asia  and  of  Europe  trembled 
at  mention  of  the  name  of  Hector." 
These  last  commands  are  ended  with 
those  few  words  wrung  from  a  mother's 
heart   which    could   not   withhold   their 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  157 

utterance,  "  And  sometimes  speak  to 
him  of  his  mother,  also." 

It  was  this  tenderness  in  the  heart  of 
Racine,  which  made  him  of  all  the 
dramatists,  the  most  successful  in  the 
delineation  of  the  sentiment  of  love, 
especially  of  love  in  woman,  where  it 
pours  itself  forth,  fresh  and  pure,  with- 
out the  worldly  ambitions  which  con- 
trol this  passion  in  the  hearts  of  men. 
He  had  all  the  warmth  and  the  enthu- 
siasm of  a  modern  chevalier  ;  and,  in 
spite  of  the  rules  to  which  his  muse  was 
subjected,  succeeded  in  creating  many 
scenes  in  which  the  heart  was  allowed 
to  pour  itself  forth  in  that  irregular 
tide  of  feeling  which  is  natural,  in  all 
conditions  of  society,  to  those  who  feel 
in  the  profoundest  depths  of  their  being. 

It  was  the  tragic  drama  that  was  es- 
pecially hampered  by  the  constraints  of 
classicism.  There  is  in  the  nature  of 
sportiveness  a  sort  of  independence  of 
all  regular  rules,  which  will  assert  it- 
self, and  whose  assertion  is  necessarily 
uncontrollable.  A  man  may  refrain 
from  weeping,  at  least  from  exhibiting 
the    outward    signs    of    weeping,    and 


158  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

often  the  deepest  and  always  the  most 
dignified  grief  is  that  which  is  endured 
in  silence  and  confined  within  the  heart 
of  the  sufferer.  Such  was  the  tone  of 
the  griefs  in  the  classic  drama,  depar- 
tures from  which,  by  modern  tragic 
poets,  were  so  discouraged  by  the  judg- 
ment of  the  controlling  critics  of  France. 

But  mirth  is  not  subject  to  such  con- 
trol. Whoever  feels  like  laughing 
must  laugh  in  spite  both  of  the  inhibi- 
tions of  others  and  even  his  own  re- 
solves. Indeed,  laughter  is  the  more 
genuine  and  irrepressible  when  such  in- 
hibitions and  restraints  are  placed  be- 
fore its  expression.  How  true  it  is  that 
often  a  trifling  occurrence,  which,  in  or- 
dinary circumstances,  would  scarcely 
move  a  smile,  yet,  when  it  happens  in 
conjunction  with  serious  things,  and  we 
feel  that  mirthfulness  is  improper,  leads 
us  to  overleap  the  restraint  and  break 
out  into  shouts  of  laughter. 

In  the  midst  of  a  society  surrounding 
such  a  court  as  that  of  Louis  XIV.,  the 
comic  drama  must  rise  speedily,  and  to 
its  highest  height.  The  same  hin- 
drances, in  kind  though  not  in  degree, 


FRENCH  LITER  A  Tl  '1:  E.  \  59 

were  in  France  as  in  Spain,  when  the 
people  began  to  desire  some  other  fun 
besides  that  uncertain  sort  that  was 
afforded  by  the  religious  plays. 

MOLlfeRE. 

The  modern  French  comic  drama 
had  struggled  along,  and  mostly  in  the 
provinces. 

For  many  years  a  young  man  fol- 
lowed in  the  train  of  a  strolling  com- 
pany. He  had  been  all  over  France, 
and  became  acquainted  with  the  many 
lighter  phases  of  French  character. 
Before  then  he  had  learned  all  about 
Paris,  his  native  city,  where  his  father 
being  the  tapissier  (upholsterer)  to  the 
royal  household,  he  had  opportunies  of 
seeing  the  ridiculous  in  its  largest  ex- 
hibitions. From  an  actor  he  became  a 
dramatist.  His  first  drama,  "L'fitourdi," 
had  carried  Lyons  by  storm  ;  and  the 
next  year,  16-"4,  his  "  Le  Depit  Amou- 
reux,"  had  a  similar  success  in  Langue- 
doc.  By  this  time  he  made  bold  to 
come  to  Paris  where  was  a  young  king, 
gay,  wilful,  already  preparing  in  his 
heart  to  place  himself  above  the  consti- 


160  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

tuted  authorities  of  the  Church.  It 
was  a  bold  stroke  young  Moliere  made 
for  the  applause  of  the  capital,  but  it 
was  well  studied,  aimed  with  matchless 
precision,  and  its  fall  was  most  trium- 
phant. 

I  spoke  in  my  last  lecture  of  the 
Hotel  de  Rambouillet,  and  the  decline 
underwent  by  the  standard  established 
there  at  the  Saturday  receptions  of 
Madamoiselle  Scuderi.  By  this  time 
the  controlling  tone  of  Parisian  culti- 
vated society  had  passed  to  the  court, 
and  yet  the  wits  of  both  sexes  who 
assembled  at  the  salons  of  this  lady 
clung  to  the  sentimentalities  of  D'Urfee 
and  his  set.  Moliere  opened  his  theatre 
in  Paris  with  his  "Precieuses  Ridicules," 
in  which  these  sentimentalists  were 
exposed  to  such  ridicule  that  they  were 
scattered  and  hushed  forever.  In  one 
night  Moliere  rose  into  universal  favor. 

Close  upon  "  Precieuses  Ridicules  " 
followed  "  Le  Cocu  Imaginaire, " 
L'ficole  de  Maris,"  "  Les  Facheux," 
Le  Malade  Imaginaire,"  "Le  Medecin 
Malgre  Lui, "  Le  Bourgeois  Gentil- 
homme  "    and    "  Tartuffe."     In    "Tar- 


FRENCH  L 1 TERA  TUR  E.  ]  Q 1 

tuffe,"  which  is  considered  his  most 
powerful  drama,  he  painted  the  hypo- 
crite in  colors  that  are  the  most  striking 
that  this  character  has  ever  appeared 
withal.  The  popularity  of  these  dramas, 
the  boundless  fun  which  they  produced, 
and  sometimes  the  approach  they  made 
to  profanation  of  sacred  things,  so 
alarmed  the  Church  that  they  succeeded 
in  obtaining  an  order  for  the  suspension 
of  the  "  Theatre  Illustre,"  as  Moliere 's 
was  called;  but  in  one  way  and  another 
the  order  was  avoided  by  the  conniv- 
ance of  the  monarch,  and  in  writing 
plays  and  in  acting  the  leading  parts 
himself,  Moliere  spent  the  remainder 
of  his  life,  actually  dying  while  pre- 
senting his  last  play  "  Argon." 

The  plays  of  Moliere  were  exactly  of 
the  kind  suited  to  that  society  and  to 
the  French.  Even  these  fun-making 
works  must  partake  to  some  degree  of 
the  formal  ideas  of  the  times  derived 
from  classic  models.  In  the  midst  of  the 
fun  which  comes  from  healthy  laughter, 
there  was  the  laugh  of  derision  and 
contempt  which  comes  from  the  sight 
of  meanness  and  villainy,  and  the  shout 
L.L.— 11 


162  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

of  triumph  at  their  exposure  and  pun- 
ishment. 

In  Moliere's  last  years  there  was 
that  to  impart  to  his  life  a  bitterness 
which  of  all  others  is  perhaps  of  the 
keenest  suffering.  At  forty  years  of 
age  he  married  a  pretty  young  actress 
of  seventeen,  whose  coquetries  rendered 
his  existence  miserable.  There  is  in 
this  life  scarcely  to  be  found  a  condi- 
tion less  to  be  envied  than  that  of  a 
man  thus  mated,  whose  efforts  to  appear 
younger  than  he  is  for  the  purpose  of 
holding  an  impossible  love  subject  him 
to  constant  failure  and  unending  ridi- 
cule. Partly  from  this  cause,  partly 
from  the  conditions  of  that  society,  his 
plays,  though  very  great,  lack  that 
genial,  healthy  humor  which  belongs  to 
English  comedy,  which  a  man  may  en- 
joy without  one  drop  of  the  bitterness 
that  comes  either  from  hate  or  from 
comtempt. 

LAFONTAINE. 

Next  to  Montaigne,  Lafontaine  is 
probably  the  writer  that  is  most  read  by 
Frenchmen.      Contemporary  with    Mo- 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  1(53 

Here,  he  was  too  good  naturecl  and  too 
indolent  to  be  hurt  by  the  latter's  supe- 
rior success  as  a  dramatist.  I  mention 
him  along  with  Moliere,  because  incom- 
parably lower  than  he  as  a  comic  dram- 
atist, he  was  before  any  of  the  remain- 
der in  his  time.  Of  his  dramas,  only 
one,  "  The  Enchanted  Cup,"  was  ever 
able  to  hold  a  considerable  place  either 
upon  the  stage  or  in  the  minds  of  read- 
ers. The  great  fame  of  Lafontaine 
is  founded  partly  on  his  Tales,  but 
mostly  on  his  Fables.  The  former  have 
long  ceased  to  be  read  with  the  avidity 
which  they  first  inspired,  because  the 
purer  state  of  modern  society  has  be- 
come offended  by  their  indecency. 

Lafontaine  was  the  very  weakest 
character  of  his  generation.  He  de- 
serted his  wife  and  child  simply  be- 
cause he  could  not  endure  the  trouble 
of  taking  care  of  anybody,  even  him- 
self. A  niece  of  Cardinal  Mazarin,  who 
had  been  banished  for  a  season  from 
court  to  the  Chateau  Thierry,  which 
was  under  his  charge,  took  him  with 
her  on  her  return  to  Paris,  introduced 
him  at  court,  and  for  the  rest  of  his  life 


164  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

one   and    another  of    the   wealthy  took 
care  of  him. 

It  was  a  singular  attitude  which 
Lafontaine  ever  maintained  in  that 
splendid  society.  He  was  the  butt  of 
universal  ridicule.  His  talk,  whether 
of  books,  of  politics,  or  ordinary  mat- 
ters, was  the  very  incarnation  of  ab- 
surdity. Of  principles,  or  opinions  of 
any  sort,  he  had  none.  He  praised 
whatever  was  powerful,  whatever  was 
fashionable,  and  he  maintained  that 
whoever  did  not  do  the  same  was  a 
fool.  He  laughed  immoderately  some- 
times at  the  most  serious  things,  really 
believing  them  to  be  funny.  Rabelais 
was  the  great  buffoon  of  France  and 
of  the  world.  One  day  Lafontaine 
seriously  asked,  in  a  circle  of  distin- 
guished persons,  which  they  considered 
the  greater  humorist — Rabelais  or  St. 
Augustine.  He  hung  onto  first  one 
then  another  of  the  court,  until  the  last, 
Madame  de  la  Sabliere,  who  had  him 
when  he  was  extremely  old,  concluding 
to  diminish  her  establishment,  wrote 
thus  to  a  friend:  "I  have  dismissed  all 
my   people,    except    my   dog,   my  cat, 


FRENCH  LITER  A  Ti  7.7'.  105 

and  Lafontaine."  When  she  died,  an 
acquaintance  hearing  the  news,  and 
starting  to  repair  to  the  house  in  order 
to  fetch  the  old  man  away,  met  him  in 
the  street  crying  like  a  child.  "  I  was 
on  my  way  to  you,"  said  he. 

But  when  this  unpracticable  creature 
took  up  his  pen  then  it  was  that  he 
charmed  as  no  other  man  of  his  day,  and 
but  one  of  any  other  time  could  charm. 
Without  accuracy,  and  without  reason- 
able sequence  in  thinking,  with  little 
inventive  power,  and  with  most  careless 
observation,  he  wrote  with  a  piquancy 
that  infatuated  all  readers.  His  gift  in 
the  felicitous  expression  of  his  native 
language  was  unequaled.  The  inter- 
mingling of  the  pathetic  and  the  hum- 
orous is  more  harmonious  than  in  the 
style  of  any  writer  of  the  world;  so  is 
that  of  the  wise  and  the  simple.  Of  all 
story  tellers,  at  least  of  stories  short 
and  of  little  import,  he  was  the  most  in- 
teresting. His  fables,  his  greatest  work, 
in  which  he  playfully  satirized  the  weak- 
nesses he  was  witness  to,  and  which  dis- 
played himself  in  that  gay  court,  so 
illustrative  are  they    of    the    things    of 


1 1  ,i !  LECTURES  ON  LITER  A  TURE. 

^  which  they  were  the  types,  have  been 
styled  the  true,  the  only  epic  poem  of 
France. 

BOSSUET,  BOURDALOUE,    MASSILLON. 

France  has  undoubtedly  produced  a 
larger  number  of  great  orators  than  any 
other  country.  It  is  but  reasonable  that 
these  should  have  first  appeared  within 
the  bosom  of  the  church.  For,  besides 
the  superior  grandness  of  those  themes 
on  which  a  preacher  had  to  discourse, 
all  other  eloquence,  outside  of  that  of 
the  pulpit,  has  never  been  able  to  ac- 
complish much  except  in  a  state  that  is 
free. 

Pericles,  Demosthenes,  Cicero,  An- 
thony, Hortensius,  Cotta,  lived  in  the  free 
agfes  of  Greece  and  Rome.  When  lib- 
erty  was  overturned,  and  the  speech  of 
the  orator  had  to  be  gauged  by  the  rod 
of  arbitrary  power,  eloquence  left  the 
world  to  return  no  more  until  the  restor- 
ation of  the  liberty  under  whose  aus- 
pices it  was  born.  History  and  tradi- 
tion tell  us  of  several  great  orators 
who  rose  in  the  Church  when  it  became 
delivered  from  persecution.      But  soon 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  167 

after  this  event  the  civilization  of  Eu- 
rope hastened  in  its  dissolution,  the  lan- 
guages of  Greece  and  Rome  ceased  to 
be  the  spoken  languages  of  the  world; 
and  eloquence,  even  with  the  free,  must 
wait  for  the  establishment  of  other 
tongues. 

Under  Louis  XIV.  none  but  a 
Churchman  could  be  an  orator,  for  the 
great  questions  of  politics  were  not  set- 
tled by  discussion,  but  according  to 
the  will  of  the  monarch.  Even  in  the 
Church,  eloquence  could  not  rise  until 
the  French  language  could  take  on  that 
development  which  has  made  it,  of  all 
modern  tongues,  perhaps  the  most  suit- 
ed for  oratorical  expression.  Of  that 
long  list  of  eloquent  divines  for  which 
that  age  was  distinguished,  Bossuet, 
Bourdaloue  and  Massillon  are  the  most 
distinguished.  The  first  was  a  Secular, 
the  second  a  Jesuit,  the  third  a  Brother 
of  the  Oratory  founded  by  St.  Philip  Neri. 

The  praise  of  exquisite  reasoning, 
conjoined  with  a  diction  that  was  per- 
fect in  its  finish,  belongs  to  Bourdaloue, 
as  well  as  the  greatest  reputation  for 
genuine  humble  piety. 


168  '■  El  'TVRES  ON  L 11  ERA  Tl  1. 1  . 

Massillon  was  greatest  in  portraying 
the  terrors  of  living  without  God  in  the 
world  and  going  unprepared  to  meet 
His  judgment. 

Bossuet  was  the  great  combatant  for 
rightful  authority,  first  the  rightful  au- 
thority of  the  King  of  Kings,  and  after- 
wards, and  in  too  near  succession,  that 
of  the  King  of  France.  In  genius,  in 
lofty  commanding  power  of  words,  he 
was  the  greatest  of  this  great  trio. 
But  for  one  infirmity  he  would  perhaps 
be  considered  universally,  as  he  has 
been  by  many,  the  greatest  pulpit  ora- 
tor of  all  ages.  Devout,  ardent,  full  of 
faith  in  Christianity  and  the  authority 
of  the  Church,  if  he  had  lived  under  a 
monarch  less  despotic,  or  been  a  braver 
man,  there  was  no  height  possible  to 
human  endeavor  that  he  might  not  have 
reached.  But  he  loved  his  King,  he 
loved  more  than  a  subject,  and  one 
sprung  as  he  was  from  the  bourgeoisie, 
that  exertion  of  despotic  power  which 
claimed  to  have  over  France  a  control 
similar  to  that  which  the  Almighty  had 
over  the  Universe.  The  infirmity  led 
him  if  not    to    flatter  his    sovereign,  at 


//'.'.'  v,  n  LITERATURE.  1(J9 

least  to  excuse,  or  not  to  oppose  many 
of  his  actions,  which  were  destined  to 
inflict  mournful  injuries  both  upon  the 
Church  and  upon  France.  Not  that  he 
ever  yielded  entirely  to  this  despotism; 
and  it  was  but  another  evidence  of  the 
splendor  of  his  talents  that  he  could  so 
write,  and  especially  so  speak,  as  to  be 
the  admired  of  all  parties.  He  had 
learned  in  youth  all  the  requirements  of 
a  courtier,  being  when  only  seventeen 
years  of  age  one  of  the  favorites  in  the 
Blue  Room  of  the  Marquise  de  Ram- 
bouillet,  and  he  profited  by  this  early 
education.  He  was  the  court  preacher, 
and  certainly  never  man  knew  so  well 
how  to  preach  before  a  powerful  mon- 
arch, and  no  man,  statesman  or  preach- 
er, ever  knew  better  than  he  how  to 
coast  along  that  dangerous  line  between 
such  a  servile  subservience  as  would 
stunt  genius,  and  especially  the  attain- 
ment of  great  oratorical  renown,  and  the 
independence  of  spirit  that  must  endan- 
ger the  favor  of  such  a  monarch  as 
Louis  XIV. — at  once  the  greatest,  the 
most  powerful  and  the  most  imperious 
in  all  modern  times.      If    Bossuet    had 


170  LECTURES  OX  LITERATURE. 

been  a  braver  priest,  and  if  his  courage 
had  not  been  molested,  there  is  no  cal- 
culating the  blessings  he  might  have 
been  to  the  Church  of  whose  principles 
he  was  a  representative. 

Louis  XIV.  was  a  Catholic,  but  such 
was  the  enormity  of  his  pride,  that  he 
could  not  endure  that  it  should  be  said 
that  the  head  of  the  Church  was  higher 
than  the  head  of  France.  Hence  arose 
that  Gallican  Church,  which,  though 
never  daring  to  avow  hostility  to  the 
See  of  Rome,  yet  for  two  hundred  years 
was  to  that  See  a  cause  of  trouble  and 
anxiety.  Like  all  other  errors  it  must 
pass  away  in  time. 

Bossuet  was  a  very  great  man. 
There  is  no  saying  now  if  he  could  have 
hindered  the  rise  of  Gallicanism.  It  is 
most  probable  that  he  could  not,  and 
that  he  knew  he  could  not.  If  so,  then 
it  is  probable  that  he  considered  how 
injurious  it  would  be  to  the  Church,  if 
an  open  hostility  to  the  ambitious  claims 
of  the  reigning  monarch  should  de- 
prive his  country  and  his  generation  of 
the  service  that  his  magnificent  gifts 
could  render  in   those  fields  that  were 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  \"J\ 

yet  left"  for  their  exertion.  There  is  no 
doubt,  that,  great  preacher  as  he  was, 
devout  Catholic  as  he  was,  he  loved  the 
splendors  of  that  splendid  court;  he 
loved  the  numerous  suite,  the  costly  in- 
signia which  the  monarch,  munificent 
as  he  was  proud,  allowed  to  the  favor- 
ite bishop  of  his  dominions.  Then, 
such  was  the  adroitness  of  that  mon- 
arch, that  his  own  claims  were  not  put 
forth  in  such  guise  as  to  painfully 
shock  the  common  Catholic  sentiment 
of  France.  Bossuet  therefore  believed, 
or  he  acted  as  if  he  believed,  that  he 
could    be    true    both    to    the    King-    of 

o 

France  and  the  Pope  of  Rome,  and  that 
he  could  most  usefully  employ  his  great 
talents  in  combating  the  enemies  of 
both. 

A  work  that  has  taken,  destined  for 
all  time,  its  place  among  the  standard 
works  of  theological  controversy,  is 
"  Les  Varietes "  a  work  which  shows 
that  he  was  not  less  gifted  with  the 
pen  than  with  the  tongue. 

Another  shadow  upon  the  fame  of 
Bossuet  was  cast  by  his  treatment  of 
one  of  the  very   best  and  loveliest  men 


172  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

that  ever  lived,  who  was  about  thirty 
years  his  junior,  but  whose  rapid  rise 
made  him  a  rival  to  the  great  preacher, 
both  in  the  nation  and  at  the  court, 
This  was  Fenelon.  A  native  of  the 
province  of  Perigord,  educated  at  the 
Du  Plessis  College  in  Paris,  having  re- 
ceived holy  orders  at  the  Seminary  of 
St.  Sulpice,  made  superintendent  of  an 
institution  for  the  reception  of  female 
converts,  his  first  work  was  on  the  "  Ed- 
ucation of  Girls,  "  a  work  which,  though 
written  by  a  very  young  man,  has  ever 
since  been  regarded  as  one  of  the  best 
standards  created  at  any  time  on  that 
theme.  Unfortunate  as  it  was  for  his 
own  peace  of  mind,  it  was  fortunate  for 
the  rest  of  the  world  that  he  was  se- 
lected by  the  monarch  as  tutor  of  his 
grandson  and  heir  apparent  to  the 
crown — the  young  Duke  of  Burgundy. 
Herein  was  the  most  beautiful  relation- 
ship that  ever  obtained  between  teacher 
and  pupil.  Perhaps  never  was  under- 
taken such  a  task  by  one  more  fitted 
for  its  duties  and  more  faithful  in  their 
discharge,  and  perhaps  never  was  a 
pupil   more  susceptible   to  the  benign 


FRENi  II  LITEBA  TV  RE.  ]  73 

influences  of  so  great  a  teacher.  The 
teacher,  while  imparting  to  his  pupil 
the  knowledge  of  general  things  neces- 
sary to  be  learned  by  all  youths  in 
schools,  led  this  boy  with  the  promise 
of  a  great  kingdom  into  the  study  of 
the  great  exemplars  good  and  bad  of 
all  times.  He  pointed  out  to  him  the 
benignant  careers  of  the  former,  and 
made  him  remark  in  those  of  the  latter 
the  misery  that  comes  from  evil  deeds, 
not  only  upon  the  sufferers,  but  the  in- 
flictors.  He  led  that  young,  docile 
mind  to  consider  how  glorious  may  be 
the  rule  of  a  prince  who  labors  continu- 
ally for  the  weal  of  his  people;  and  how 
empty  is  the  glory  that  attains  that  ex- 
alted estate,  when  this  first  great  duty  is 
neglected. 

Between  the  two  an  affectionate 
friendship  grew,  destined,  in  spite  of 
future  inhibitions  to  their  society,  to  con- 
tinue until  the  untimely  death  of  this 
young  prince  in  whom  there  was  so 
much  of  promise  for  France.  In  his 
hours  of  leisure  from  the  daily  lessons 
to  his  charge,  he  wrote,  all  in  the  aid  of 
the  office  he  had  in  hand,  his  "  Fables," 


174  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

his  "  Dialogues  of  the  Dead,  "  his  "  His- 
tory of  the  Ancient  Philosophers, "  the 
"  Life  of  Charlemagne,  "  and  began  that 
more  famous  than  these,  his  "  Telemach- 
us."  In  return  for  the  signal  services 
he  had  rendered,  he  was  made,  in  1695, 
Archbishop  of  Carnbray. 

Soon  thereafter  began  those  contro- 
versies on  the  subject  of  Quietism,  the 
advanced  party  in  which,  under  the  lead 
of  Molinos  was  carried  to  such  extremes 
that  the  other  party,  led  by  Madame 
Guyon,  was  not  able  to  secure  the  re- 
spect that  was  really  due  to  persons  who 
were  known  to  be — many  of  them  — 
among  the  most  devout  members  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  In  compassion  for 
Madame  Guyon,  against  whom  a  perse- 
cution was  begun  —  a  compassion  that 
became  more  pronounced  when  she  sub- 
mitted without  complaint  to  the  con- 
demnation of  her  opinions  by  the 
commission  appointed  for  their  consid- 
eration, Bossuet  submitted  to  Fenelon  a 
work  which,  when  the  controversy  was 
supposed  to  be  settled,  he  had  written; 
and  asked  his  endorsement.  This  work 
was  entitled  "States  of  Prayer."  Fene- 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  175 

Ion  refused  to  give  it;  and  wrote  a  work 
which  he  named  "  Maxims  of  the  Saints 
in  the  Interior  Life."  This  manuscript 
was  surreptitiously  published,  after 
having  been  stolen  from  the  author's 
study. 

It  is  sad  even  now  to  contemplate  the 
hostility  that  was  engendered  between 
these  great  prelates,  in  which  the  older, 
backed  by  the  influence  of  the  court, 
warred  with  an  acrimony  of  whose  re- 
lenting there  has  ever  been  a  doubt. 
Some  of  the  maxims  were  condemned 
at  Rome,  and  the  younger  antagonist 
quickly  bowed  before  the  judgment  of 
the  Holy  See,  recanted  everything  that 
had  been  condemned,  and  gave  to  his 
recantation  as  much  notoriety  as  was 
possible. 

Yet  such  beautiful  submission  was 
not  enough  for  that  court.  The  "  Tele- 
machus  "  had  been  published  in  the 
while,  this  also  surreptitiously.  The 
flatterers  of  the  king  persuaded  him 
that  this  and  the  other  works  written 
for  the  instruction  of  the  young  Duke  of 
Burgundy  had  been  written  in  covert 
hostility  to  his  dynasty. 


176  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

Was  Bossuet  among  these  flatterers? 
We  cannot  say  with  certainty.  Some 
maintain  that  he  was  at  their  head. 
The  great  monarch  believed,  or  pre- 
tended to  believe,  that  he  himself  was 
intended  in  the  character  of  Sesostris; 
that  his  minister  Louvois  was  meant  in 
that  of  Proteselaos;  that  Eucharis  was 
intended  to  represent  Mademoiselle  de 
Fontanges,  one  of  his  female  favorites; 
and  Calypso,  her  who  stood  at  the  head 
of  this  fond  list,  Madame  de  Montespan. 

"  Put  not  your  trust  in  princes,"  said 
the  wise  man.  Henceforth  Fenelon 
was  confined  within  the  limits  of  his 
Archdiocese.  There  were  some  who 
said  that  Bossuet,  touched  by  the  hum- 
ble submission  of  his  rival  to  Rome, 
and  the  friendlessness  to  which  he  had 
been  reduced,  strove  at  last  to  restore 
to  him  the  favor  of  the  king  without 
success.  Even  the  young  Duke  of 
Burgundy  was  refused  the  sight  of  his 
beloved  preceptor.  But  he  loved  him 
none  the  less  until  his  death,  which  was 
soon  after  followed  by  that  of  him 
whose  precepts  had  imparted  to  his 
youth    the    principles     that    made    his 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  177 

young  manhood  such  a  promise  to   the 
people  of  France. 

It  was  a  beautiful  life;  its  remainder 
was  spent  in  the  best  works  to  which  a 
priest  of  God  may  devote  himself. 
Not  many  of  Fenelon's  sermons  were 
preserved.  These,  however,  rank  among1 
the  very  highest  in  pulpit  eloquence. 
L.L.— 12 


III. 

Diderot,  Voltaire  and    Rousseau. 

The  age  of  Louis  XIV.  was  eminent- 
ly prolific  in  men  of  genius.  The 
establishment  of  the  French  Acad- 
emy, the  congregation  of  minds  of  all 
varieties  of  p-ifts  around  a  court  which 
liberally  encouraged  their  development, 
especially  where,  as  was  mostly  the 
case,  they  were  devoted  to  the  exalta- 
tion of  the  reigning  sovereign,  opened  a 
vast  field  for  intellectual  endeavor.  In 
the  pride  of  his  power  that  sovereign 
had  sought  and  in  some  degree  succeed- 
ed in  humbling  the  Church  to  which 
France  had  always  been  faithful,  and 
establishing  one  of  which  he  himself 
was  the  head.  To  these  endeavors  all 
the  talent  of  the  nation,  if  it  expected 
encouragement,  or  even  if  it  only  aimed 
to  avoid  neglect  or  persecution,  must 
contribute.  We  have  seen  how  even 
the  eloquent  and  devout  Bossuet  was 
made  to  play  a  part  in  this  adulation. 
(178) 


FRENCH  LITERATURE,  J 79 

This  long  reign  of  seventy-two  years, 
the  wasting  wars,  the  boundless  expen- 
siveness  of  the  court,  its  bad  morals  for 
which  there  was  a  fatal  example  in  the 
habits  of  the  monarch,  the  distress  and 
poverty  among  the  common  people,  all 
these  things  produced  a  state  of  society 
on  which  religion  exerted  a  continually 
weakening  influence.  When  the  aged 
king  died  at  last,  there  was  not  one  of 
his  descendants  alive  except  a  child,  his 
great-grandson.  Then  the  Regency 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Duke  of 
Orleans;  and  society  degenerated  yet 
further  to  a  degree  that  a  pure  mind 
shudders  to  read  of  its  revolting  abomi- 
nations. 

In  the  midst  of  such  a  state  of  things 
there  began  to  arise  a  spirit  of  free 
thinking  in  the  minds  of  a  numerous 
body  of  men  of  varying  intellectual 
capacities.  Yet  among  them  were  a 
few  names  who  in  this  latter  respect 
towered  far  above  the  rest  of  their 
countrymen.  The  spirit  of  independ- 
ence at  first  made  serious  endeavors 
with  such  men  as  Descartes  and  Bayle, 
whose  interior  lives  were  comparatively 


180  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

pure,  and  especially  in  the  latter,  yet 
influenced  by  religious  fears  if  not  by 
other  religious  considerations. 

In  the  process  of  its  development  it 
fell  under  the  control  of  such  men  as 
Diderot,  D  'Alembert,  Voltaire  and 
Rousseau,  and  from  first  one  and  then 
another  position  of  advancement  cul- 
minated into  a  degree  of  lawlessness  the 
equal  of  which  has  never  been  known 
in  the  history  of  mankind. 

The  leader  of  this  set,  especially  in 
that  enterprise  from  which  their  gen- 
uine name  was  obtained,  was  Diderot. 
He  had  been  intended  for  the  Church, 
but  very  early  left  his  studies  in  that  di- 
rection for  mathematics,  philosophy  and 
sociology.  For  the  purpose  of  giving 
wider  dissemination  to  his  views,  and  of 
obtaining  more  organized  cooperation 
from  his  familiars,  he  began  the  prepa- 
ration of  that  work  destined  to  become 
forever  famous  and  to  impart  its  name 
to  its  contributors — the  "  Encyclopedic 
des  Arts ,  des  Sciences ,  et  des  Me- 
tiers." 

The  preliminary  discourse  of  this 
vast  work  was  written  by  D'Alembert 


FREXCIT  LITERATURE.  181 

whose  Christian  name,  because  he  could 
obtain  no  other  by  rightful  authority, 
was  Jean  Le  Ronde,  which  was  given 
to  him  because  at  his  birth  he  was  left 
exposed,  by  his  mother,  at  the  door  of 
the  church  of  that  name  in  Paris. 
These  two  men  were  wonderfully  gifted 
for  the  work  they  had  in  hand.  The 
mind  of  D'Alembert,  outside  of  his  so- 
cial and  religious  inquiries,  was  di- 
rected mostly  towards  the  physical 
sciences,  and  his  investigations  have 
made  him  deservedly  illustrious  in  this 
department  of  inquiry. 

Diderot,  in  the  intervals  when  he 
would  rest  from  his  main  work,  amused 
himself  with  writing  novels  and  petty 
comedies  in  which  religion  and  social 
decency  were  treated  with  disrespect, 
derision  and  hostility.  In  addition  to 
these  a  good  part  of  his  time  was  oc- 
cupied in  correspondence  with  Voltaire 
and  Grimm,  and  others  of  that  class 
which  show  a  state  of  society  in  France 
that  was  scarcely  if  any  better  than  that 
of  the  worst  condition  of  the  Roman 
Empire. 

The    Encyclopedia,  begun    in    1751, 


182  LECTURES  OH  LITERATURE. 

was  finally  completed  in  1769,  occupy- 
ing a  period  of  eighteen  years.  The 
editors  and  the  leading  contributors 
were  destined  thereafter  to  be  known 
as  Encyclopedists,  and  their  influence 
in  small  part  for  good,  but  mostly  for 
evil,  was  vast  and  most  prolonged. 
In  that  department  which  was  purely 
evil  two  names  are  far  more  famous  than 
those  of  Diderot  and  D'Alembert. 

These  are  Voltaire  and  Rousseau. 
Curious  indeed  and  eventful  were  the 
careers  of  these  two  men,  the  most 
prominent  and  noxious  outgrowth  of 
the  society  of    the   eighteenth   century. 

An  incident  or  two  in  the  youth  of 
Voltaire  illustrates  to  some  degree  the 
immense  distance  between  the  higher 
and  lower  ranks  of  society,  which  con- 
tributed to  form  his  subsequent  career 
of  rebellion  against  authority  of  every 
kind.  A  satirical  writing  on  the  reign 
of  Louis  XIV.  appeared  shortly  after 
his  death,  and  Voltaire,  wrongly  sus- 
pected as  the  author,  was  imprisoned 
for  a  year  in  the  Bastille.  On  another 
occasion,  when,  in  a  company  of  wits,  he 
gave  to  a  man  of  quality  a  retort  which 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  183 

drew  upon  him  laughter,  the  man  of 
quality  had  him  flogged  in  the  streets 
of  Paris  by  his  footman.  Bent  upon 
revenge,  Voltaire  took  some  lessons  in 
fencing  and  afterwards  challenged  his 
enemy.  Then  he  was  again  thrown 
into  the  Bastille  for  another  six  months, 
and  released  on  condition  that  he  would 
leave  the  country. 

Such  was  a  sample  of  that  grinding 
oppression  to  which  the  common  people 
of  France  were  subjected  during  the 
regency  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans  in  the 
minority  of  Louis  XV.  In  such  a  state 
of  things  it  might  be  imagined  what 
one  from  among  these  common  people 
would  do,  when,  without  religious 
faith,  without  moral  obligation,  but 
with  a  revengeful,  malignant  and  other- 
wise evil  heart,  with  invincible  audac- 
ity, with  a  perfect  command  of  a  lan- 
guage—  for  some  purposes  the  most 
perfect  of  existing  tongues — with  the 
highest  capacity  both  to  think  and  to 
work  with  rapidity  and  without  cessa- 
tion, he  could  have  a  fair  field  and 
length  of  time. 

He  lived  to  be  eighty-four  years  old, 


184  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

and  the  ninety  volumes  that  he  left  are 
the  results  of  that  powerful,  rapid, 
ceaseless  work.  They  comprise  the 
only  epic  poem  in  the  French  language, 
tragedies,  comedies,  odes,  satires,  histo- 
ries, essays,  letters,  every  form  of  com- 
position for  which  pen  and  paper  were 
ever  employed,  the  most  of  which  were 
meant  to  pull  down  and  to  destroy 
whatever  existed  that  was  good  and 
precious,  either  in  fact  or  in  the  hearts 
of  mankind,  and  to  exalt  his  own  single, 
selfish  self  above  all  beings  except  that 
only  One  whom  he  acknowledged  be- 
yond humanity,  God.  In  this  last  one 
respect  he  differed  from  Diderot,  the 
founder  of  the  Encyclopedists.  He 
was  an  atheist.  Voltaire  did  believe  in 
a  God.  But  he  believed  only  that  at 
first  God  made  the  world  and  set  it  go- 
ing, and  then  retired  to  let  it  take  care 
of  itself  with  the  use  of  whatever  in- 
stincts and  opportunities  it  had  been 
provided  withal.  These  instincts  and 
opportunities  which  fell  to  his  lot,  he 
employed  with  a  freedom  which  it  is 
wonderful  to  contemplate.  Disregarding 
the   laws  which  the    better  part  of    so- 


FRENCH  LITER  A  Tl  'RE.  Ig5 

ciety  believed  God  to  have  made  for  the 
government  of  mankind,  and  the  indi- 
vidual conduct  of  its  members,  keeping 
himself  within,  and  just  within,  the  pale 
of  human  laws,  he  worked  day  and 
night,  in  season,  and  out  of  season,  for 
the  advancement  of  his  own  ends,  which 
he  seemed  to  regard  as  hostile  to  the 
ends  of  all  the  rest  of  mankind. 

He  worked  and  he  made  money,  not 
so  much  by  his  books,  as  by  trade  and 
lotteries,  and  other  chance  speculations. 
He  satirized  and  sneered  at  all  that  was 
considered  good  and  sacred  ;  he  scoffed 
at  the  Church  and  at  Christianity;  he 
laughed  at  the  obligations  of  mar- 
riage; and  then  when  death  came  to 
him,  the  approach  so  terrified  him 
that  he  became  a  maniac,  and  his  last 
struggles  were  so  terrific  that  they 
horrified  and  appalled  those  who  were 
witnesses  to  them.  It  seemed,  indeed, 
as  if  the  furies  told  of  in  fable  had 
been  let  loose  upon  him  when  age 
and  imbecility  had  subdued  his  power  y 
for  wrongdoing  and  left  only  remorse 
and  the  dread  of  retribution. 

The  life  of  Voltaire  is  a  curious  one 


186     LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

to  study,  both  as  to  its  representations 
of  an  age  not  long  past  and  of  the 
exhibition  it  affords  of  the  lengths  to 
which  a  most  gifted  intellect  will  go, 
when  it  is  entirely  broken  off  from  the 
bonds  of  religion  and  any  principle  of 
morality  and  honor.  For  neither  the 
greatest  nor  the  smallest  of  his  in- 
firmities was  his  want  of  veracity.  A 
falsehood  with  Voltaire,  if  it  could  serve 
his  purposes,  was  as  much  prized  as  the 
truth.  When  he  first  essayed  to  get 
into  the  Academy,  although  he  had 
spoken  and  written  much  against 
Christianity,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  d-eny 
both,  and  when  at  last,  through  the 
influence  of  Madame  de  Pompadour,  he 
succeeded  on  his  second  application,  he 
returned  to  his  old  ways  only  with 
increased  bitterness.  His  moral  char- 
acter was  the  very  incarnation  of 
unlicensed  profligate  evil.  In  his  terror 
at  the  last  it  did  indeed  seem  as  if  he 
would  have  availed  himself  of  the 
refuse  of  reliffion,  but  his  furious  mad- 
ness  cut  him  off  from  that  opportunity. 
In  the  study  of  German  literature  we 
read     about     the     strange     infatuation, 


FRENCH  LITERA  TURF..  187 

amounting  to  subserviency,  paid  by  the 
people  of  that  nation  in  that  period  to 
the  French.  A  part  of  this  was  owing 
to  Voltaire  who  resided  for  some  years 
at  the  court  of  Frederick,  afterwards 
surnamed  the  Great.  This  portion  of 
the  life  of  the  great  Frenchman  was 
extremely  interesting  in  itself,  going  as 
did  his  career  through  all  the  shades  of 
relationship  from  the  very  height  of 
cordial  favoritism  down  to  the  extremes 
of  hostility  and  disgust.  Parts  of  this 
are  laughable,  or  would  be  except  for 
the  contempt  which  it  inspires.  This 
last-mentioned  feeling  has  never  been 
created  in  such  abundance  by  any 
human  being  who  ever  lived  as  by  Vol- 
taire. But  his  influence  upon  German 
literary  genius  was  powerful,  and  it 
was  pernicious.  It  was  the  chief  glory 
of  Lessing  that  he  destroyed  it  and  that 
he  did  so  effectually. 

Retiring  from  Berlin,  and  feeling  not 
fully  secure  in  his  native  country  which 
he  had  virtually  abandoned,  and  whose 
best  possessions  he  had  vilified,  he  set- 
tled, though  then  sixty-four  years  old, 
in  a  country  place  near  Geneva,  where, 


188  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

as  restless  and  as  ambitious  and  as  pas- 
sionate as  ever  before,  he  continued  to 
work  until  the  last. 

In  those  eighty-four  years  of  life 
vouchsafed  to  this  man,  his  work  was  as 
various  as  it  was  extensive,  in  science, 
art  and  philosophy,  as  well  as  in  litera- 
ture. The  world  now  seldom  ever  no- 
tices those  philosophical  works  in  which 
he  avowedly  sought  to  overthrow  Chris- 
tianity, and  his  works  on  history,  science 
and  art,  though  praised  in  their  day, 
have  been  overshadowed  by  the  greater 
things  that  have  been  produced  since. 
He  is  now  of  interest  to  the  student  of 
literature,  mainly  for  his  dramas,  espe- 
cially his  tragic. dramas,  in  which,  with 
all  his  varied  accomplishments  of  other 
sorts  he  ranks  along  with  Corneille  and 
Racine. 

If  Voltaire  had  been  a  better  man 
he  would  far  outrank  both  these  men 
to  whom  he  was  superior  in  genius. 
Whilst  he  was  in  England  he  had 
studied  well  Shakespeare,  who  was  to- 
tally unknown  to  the  French,  and  whom 
they  at  first  considered  both  a  madman 
and  a  barbarian  ;  but  from  Shakespeare 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  189 

he  got  much  of  the  idea  of  that  deeper 
delineation  of  passion  which  the  rules  of 
the  stately  tragic  drama  excluded. 

The  following  observations  from 
Schlegel's  lectures,  are  apposite  to  this 
discussion : 

"  French  tragedy  from  the  time  of 
Richelieu  developed  itself  under  the 
favor  and  protection  of  the  court,  and 
even  its  scene  had,  as  already  observed, 
the  appearance  of  an  ante -chamber.  In 
such  an  atmosphere,  the  spectators  might 
impress  the  poet  with  the  idea  that 
courtesy  is  one  of  the  original  and 
essential  ingredients   of  human  nature. 

But  in  tragedy  men  are  either 
matched  with  men  in  fearful  strife,  or 
set  in  close  strug-p-le  with  misfortune. 
We  can  therefore  exact  from  them  only 
an  ideal  dignity,  far  from  the  nice  ob- 
servance of  social  punctilios,  they  are 
absolved  by  their  situation.  So  long  as 
they  possess  sufficient  presence  of  mind 
not  to  violate  them,  so  long  as  they  do 
not  appear  completely  overpowered  by 
their  grief  and  mental  agony,  the  deep- 
est emotion  is  not  yet  reached.  The 
poet  may  be  allowed  to  take  that  care 
for  his  persons  which  Caesar,  after  his 
death-blow,  had  for  himself ,  and  make 
them  fall  with  decorum.  He  must  not 
exhibit  human  nature  in  all  its  repulsive 


190  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

nakedness.  The  most  heartrending  and 
dreadful  pictures  must  still  be  invested 
with  beauty  and  imbued  with  a  dignity 
higher  than  the  common  reality.  This 
miracle  is  effected  by  poetry  ;  it  has  its 
indescribable  sighs,  its  immediate  ac- 
cents of  the  deepest  agony,  in  which 
there  still  runs  a  something-  melodious. 
It  is  only  a  certain  full-dress  and  formal 
beauty  which  is  incompatible  with  the 
greatest  truth  of  expression.  Yet  it  is 
exactly  this  beauty  that  is  demanded  in 
the  style  of  a  French  tragedy.  " 

Voltaire  labored  assiduously  to  bring 
the  French  theatre  into  a  more  reasona- 
ble condition  in  this  respect,  and,  so  far 
as  the  important  matter  of  external 
arrangement  was  concerned,  he  suc- 
ceeded. This  was  the  abolishment  of 
the  boxes  on  either  side  of  the  stage  in 
which  persons  of  quality  used  to  sit, 
whose  continued  chatterings  greatly  in- 
convenienced the  actors  on  the  narrow 
space  allowed  for  their  representations. 

His  first  efforts  in  the  line  of  the 
Greeks,  were  "  CEdipe,"  "  Merope " 
and  "Oreste."  Descending  from  the 
Greeks  to  the  Romans,  he  had  his 
••  Brutus,'"  his  "  Morte  de  Caesar,"  his 
'•  Triumvirat." 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  \\\\ 

But  his  greatest  works  were  those  in 
which,  discarding  the  forms  of  the  an- 
cients, here  stored  to  the  stage  that  mod- 
ern hero  of  chivalry,  which  since  the 
time  of  the  Cid  had  been  banished  from  it. 

Splendid,  indeed,  are  the  tragedies  of 
"  Zaire,  "  "  Alzire,  "  "  Mahomet, "  "  Sern- 
iramis  "  and  "  Tancrede.  "  In  "  Zaire  " 
the  passions  of  love  and  jealousy  are 
portrayed  in  a  manner  unknown  and 
unimagined  by  the  greatest  of  the 
Greeks,  and  they  are  only  such  as  can 
be  felt  by  woman  as  she  has  become 
since  Christianity  and  chivalry  have  ex- 
alted her  to  her  proper  scale  in  the  be- 
ing of  society. 

In  "  Alzire  "  the  poet  made  a  picture 
almost  perfect  of  the  struggles  of  the 
heroine  Alzire.  On  one  side  there  was 
the  love  of  her  country  (Peru),  its  an- 
cient, though  less  cultured,  manners, 
and  her  first  lover  there,  and  what 
seemed  higher  obligations  in  the  new 
sphere  to  which  she  was  raised.  In 
reading  this  great  drama,  one  cannot 
but  feel  genuine  sympathy  as  in  a  case 
of  real  perplexity  befalling  the  young, 
the  beautiful,  and  the  innocent. 


192  LECTURES  ON  LITERATI' UK. 

In  "  Mahomet, "  horrible  as  is  the 
plot  and  violative  as  it  is  of  history  and 
the  personal  character  of  the  prophet, 
yet  the  passion  is  such  as  comports 
with  the  loftiest  demands  of  tragedy. 

It  is  a  mark  of  the  wonderful  tal- 
ent of  this  man  that  in  these  two 
dramas  ("  Zaire  "  and  "  Alzire  ")  with  his 
own  sentiments  towards  Christianity,  he 
should  so  well  have  understood  what  it 
could  induce  a  true  believer  to  feel  and 
what  to  speak.  It  was  as  if  for  the 
time  being  he  had  parted  from  his  infi- 
delity, and  in  that  interval  felt  all  that 
fervor  which  for  so  many  ages  has  sus- 
tained and  strengthened  and  animated 
the  sufferers  upon  the  earth. 

But  even  here  the  intellectual  insin- 
cerity of  Voltaire  was  evident  often. 
Witness  the  anecdote  of  his  instructions 
to  a  certain  actress  who  was  preparing 
for  a  part  in  one  of  his  tragedies.  In 
answer  to  some  of  his  suggestions,  she 
said,  '•  Were  I  to  play  in  this  manner, 
sir,  they  would  say  the  devil  was  in 
me."  "  Very  right,"  answered  Voltaire, 
"  an  actress  ought  to  have  the  devil  in 
her."     This  shows  that  at  least  his  own 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  193 

intellect,  not  to  mention  his  moral  sen- 
sibility, was  below  the  high  standard  in 
tragic  feeling,  in  which  the  truly  great 
who  suffer  are  not  subdued  by  suffer- 
ing into  expressions  inconsistent  with 
manly  dignity  and  womanly  delicacy. 
Voltaire's  immense  powers,  his  wit, 
his  satire,  his  art  in  reasoning,  his  per- 
fect command  of  words  for  every  form 
of  writing,  gave  to  his  principles  the 
most  pernicious  influence.  The  follow- 
ing words  of  Victor  Hugo  are  emi- 
nently discriminating  : 

"  Voltaire  leaves  us  a  monument  more 
astonishing  by  its  extent  than  imposing 
by  its  grandeur.  It  is  not  an  edifice  of 
the  august  order.  It  is  no  palace  for 
kings,  it  is  no  hospital  for  the  poor.  It 
is  a  bazaar  elegant  and  vast,  easily 
moved  through,  irregular,  displaying 
untold  riches  flungon  mud-heaps,  offer- 
ing to  every  interest,  to  every  vanity, 
to  every  passion,  the  very  thing  that 
suits  it  best,  dazzling  to  the  eye,  but 
rank  to  the  nostril,  presenting  impuri- 
ties as  pleasures,  alive  with  merchants, 
tramps,  idlers,  but  seldom  showing  a 
priest,  or  a  poor  workingman.  Here 
are  splendid  galleries,  thronged  inces- 
santly with  wonder-lost  crowds;    there 

L.L.— 13 


194  LECTURES  ON  LITERA  TURK. 

are  dark  caverns  which  nobody  boasts 
of  ever  having  visited.  Under  those 
sumptuous  arcades  you  can  find  count- 
less masterpieces  of  art  and  taste,  glit- 
tering with  gold  and  diamonds,  but  for 
the  bronze  statue,  with  the  severe  and 
classic  forms  of  antiquity,  you  may  look 
*n  vain.  Decorations  for  your  parlors, 
and  boudoirs,  you  will  find  in  abund- 
ance, but  no  ornaments  for  your  sanc- 
tuary, for  your  oratory.  And  woe  to 
the  weak  man  who  has  nothing  but  a 
soul  to  lose,  if  he  exposes  it  to  the  se- 
ductions of  this  magnificent  abode,  of 
this  monstrous  temple  in  which  every- 
thing is  thought  of  except  truth,  and 
everything  worshipped  except  God.  " 

When    one    thinks   of    those    daring 

o 

apostles  of  evil  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
with  the  horror  that  is  inevitable,  there 
is  mingled  in  the  case  of  one  of 
them,  a  commiseration,  which  is  some- 
thing of  a  relief,  that  comes  from  the 
indulgence  of  compassion.  Bad  as  he 
was,  worthless  in  conduct  and  in  prin- 
ciples, he  was  not  a  defiant  scoffer  and 
•hater  of  virtue  and  religion.  He  was 
not  an  atheist,  nor  a  deist. 

A  low-born  Swiss,  he  had  no  oppor- 
tunities for  battling    against    the    poor 


Ft; KM  II  L I TEK,  1  77  'RE.  195 

condition  to  which  he  was  born.  His 
evil,  selfish,  idle  nature,  led  him  to  neg- 
lect his  work,  to  steal  for  his  living; 
and  his  strongest  attachments  were  for 
those  low  like  himself ;  but  Rousseau, 
in  the  midst  of  his  worthlessness  and 
his  vices,  had  some  undefined  belief  in 
religion,  and  some  fear  of  that  terrible 
punishment  which  might  befall  him  in 
another  state  of  existence.  This  indefi- 
nite belief  and  this  fear  were  not  suffi- 
cient to  restrain  his  evil  practices  with 
himself,  or  with  his  pen,  but  they  lead 
us  to  imagine  that  under  more  favorable 
circumstances  his  career  might  have 
been  less  intensely  hurtful  to  himself 
and  to  society. 

To  read  the  early  life  of  Rousseau  is 
somewhat  like  reading  the  life  of  any 
tramping  thief,  who  has  obtained  a  pre- 
carious living  by  wandering  about  from 
place  to  place,  begging  what  he  could 
not  steal,  and  stealing  what  he  could 
not  beg.  The  children  born  of  him 
and  Therese,  who  was  yet  lower  than 
himself,  were  sent  to  the  foundlinof- 
hospital.  When  at  last  the  kind  of 
talent  that  he  possessed  was  exhibited, 


196  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

he  found  temporary  shelter  with  first 
one  then  another  person  in  France,  Eng- 
land and  Switzerland,  until  death  came 
and  put  an  end  to  his  earthly  career. 

After  his  death  there  was  published 
his  celebrated  "  Confessions.  "  He  had 
boasted  that  no  human  being  had  ever 
written  such  a  record  of  his  own  doings. 
In  this  he  was  correct.  The  history  of 
mankind  gives  no  instance  wherein  a 
man  with  such  plainness  of  speech  told 
the  world  he  left  behind  him  of  a  career 
in  which  the  grossness  of  evil  is  the 
ever  recurring  and  almost  perpetual 
theme.  The  audacity  with  which  this 
was  done  almost  approached  the  sub- 
lime. Rousseau  declared  that  when  the 
judgment  day  should  come  he  would 
appear  before  the  great  Judge  of 
Heaven  and  Earth,  with  his  book  in  his 
hand,  and  say  that  was  what  he  should 
have  to  offer  in  his  own  defense  —  his 
confessions  of  all  or  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  sins  and  atrocities  that  he 
had  committed. 

But  what  was  the  secret  of  the  influ- 
ence of  such  a  man  without  education, 
and  without  principles?     First,   it  was 


FRENCH  LITERATURE.  197 

the  absolute  rottenness  of  the  state  of 
society.  We  do  not  know,  we  cannot 
fully  realize,  how  corrupt  was  that  age 
of  Louis  XIV.  in  France.  Not  only 
religion,  but  honor,  seemed  to  have  lost 
their  bearings.  Not  only  men  but  wo- 
men had  grown  to  regard  an  obligation 
as  something  which  it  was  both  un- 
manly and  unwomanly  to  keep.  Bien- 
sdances,  as  they  were  called,  were  worth 
infinitely  more  than  religion  and  honor. 
That  society  would  have  been,  or  pre- 
tended to  be,  shocked  by  a  young 
lady's  slightest  indiscretion;  but  when 
once  she  was  married  then  there  was  a 
higher  law  which  was  to  govern  con- 
jugal conduct,  and  it  required  more 
strength  than  fell  to  the  lot  of  most  to 
resist  the  ridicule  which  followed  upon 
the  faithful  discharge  of  conjugal  obli- 
gations. 

Now,  Rousseau  saw  all  the  hollowness 
of  such  a  state  of  society.  If  he  had 
been  a  good  man,  hating  this  state  as 
he  did,  there  is  no  calculating  the  good 
he  might  have  done.  But  he  was  a 
savage  by  nature,  and  he  had  gotten  to 
believe  that  the  savage  state  was  better 


198  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

for  mankind  than  that  in  which  the 
people  of  France  were  then  living. 
Though  not  gifted  like  Voltaire  with  an 
elaborate  education,  Rousseau  knew 
better  how  to  talk  and  how  to  write 
in  presenting  to  the  people  the  ideas 
of  that  ideal  society  in  which  every- 
body did  as  he  pleased,  and  where  there 
was  no  such  thing  as  relationship  be- 
tween governor  and  governed,  superior 
and  inferior. 

The  great  works  of  Rousseau,  his 
"  Contrat  Social,  "  his  "  Nouvelle  He- 
loi'se  "  and  his  "  iWile"  are  founded  on 
this  idea  of  unlicensed  freedom.  A  law 
of  any  sort  was  a  thing  hateful  in  his 
eyes,  and  he  made  it  hateful  to  a  very 
large  portion  of  the  people  of  his  gen- 
eration. There  was  much  that  was  sin- 
cere in  his  hostility  to  the  pedantry  and 
the  affectation  and  the  sneering  of  Vol- 
taire and  his  set.  There  was  much  of 
genuine  feeling  in  Rousseau,  in  opposi- 
tion to  this  artificiality  of  the  upper  so- 
ciety of  France. 

Rousseau  undertook  to  lead  in  a 
great  movement  to  bring  back  the  days 
of  simple-heartedness.     This  school  be- 


FR F.X<  'II  L I TERA  TURE.  199 

came  a  sentimental  one,  but  it  was  of  a 
nature  that  had  neither  genuine  manli- 
ness, nor  genuine  .  femininity.  It  was 
an  indolent  longing  for  ease  and  free- 
dom, and  unlicensed  liberties  of  all 
sorts.  In  the  times  of  the  Trouveres 
and  the  Troubadours,  there  was  abund- 
ance of  sentiment;  but  it  went  along 
with  courage  in  men  and  virtue  in  WO- 
men,  and  a  sacred  regard  to  God,  and 
truth  in  both. 

A  critic,  speaking  of  Rousseau's  in- 
fluence on  German  literature  of  this 
time,  thus  talks  : 

"  An  evil  conscience  has  always  much 
to  do  with  sentimentality.  It  is  the 
more  or  less  clear  consciousness  of 
self-produced  unmanliness.  Rousseau 
—  the  weak,  unstable  Rousseau  —  now 
rising  to  the  heights  of  sublimity,  and 
now  sinking  to  vulgarity,  at  one  time 
flattering  his  own  weaknesses,  at  an- 
other despising  himself  again  —  is  a 
personification  of  the  whole  species.  It 
is  the  unchivalrous  character  of  modern 
times  ;  it  is  man  disguised  in  petticoats 
as  a  punishment  for  his  cowardice  ;  it  is 
the  temporary  reversal  of  the  sexual 
poles  —  a  transferring  of  feminine  tim- 
idity,  feminine   weakness  of   character, 


200  LECTURES  ON  LTTERA  TURE. 

feminine  longings,  feminine  frivolity, 
feminine  vanity  and  love  of  finery, 
feminine  excitability,  and  preeminently 
of  the  feminine  luxury  of  tears  to  the 
once,  vigorous,  steadfast,  proud,  calm 
and  cold  man." 

Rousseau  —  poor,  vagabond  Rousseau 
—  subsisted  always  on  the  charities  of 
others.  All  his  life  he  was  under  the 
thrall  of  the  low,  vulgar  Therese,  with 
whom  later  in  life  he  took  the  marriage 
bonds  which  he  had  taught  to  be  the 
most  useless  and  oppressive  of  all. 
Long  before  his  death  he  was  consumed 
by  the  evil  passions  which  he  had 
indulged.  They  distorted  his  features, 
making  of  him  another  man  whom 
few  persons  recognized,  and  earlier  than 
Voltaire,  and  for  a  longer  duration,  he 
was  a  maniac. 

In  the  midst  of  the  insupportable 
sufferings  of  France  from  the  baleful 
influences  of  its  men  of  letters,  her  cry 
and  that  of  all  Europe  was  shrieked  for 
deliverance.  Then  came  the  Revolu- 
tion, that  vast,  angry,  resistless,  con- 
flagration in  which  much  of  good  was 
consumed  by  the  abounding  evil  that 
had  absorbed  it. 


Spanish  Literature. 


(201) 


SPANISH   LITERATURE 


Spanish  Ballad  Poetry, 
i^|NE  of  the  most  interesting  themes 
^=^  for  the  study  of  those  who  are  fond 
to  contemplate  the  history  of  mankind, 
especially  in  ages  long  gone  by,  is  the 
career  of  the  Arab  race.  To  Ishmael, 
the  son  of  the  bondwoman,  the  proph- 
ecy came  that  his  hand  should  be 
against  the  hand  of  other  men,  and  the 
hand  of  other  men  against  his.  It  is  a 
melancholy  story  which  tells  of  how  the 
free  woman,  the  lawful  wife  of  the  Pa- 
triarch, jealous  for  the  claims  of  her 
own  offspring,  cast  out  the  unhappy 
Hagar,  with  her  son.  in  whose  veins  was 
the  commingled  blood  of  the  Hebrew 
and  the  Egyptian.  Expecting  to  die 
in  their  exile,  they  were  comforted  by 
the  Almighty.  The  boy  grew  to  be  a 
mighty  archer,  his  mother  obtained  for 
him  a  wife  from  his  kindred  of  Egypt, 

(203) ' 


204  LECTURES  OX  LITERA  TURE. 

and  he  dwelt  in  the  wilderness  of  Paran. 
A  mighty  nation  sprang  from  this  origi- 
nal. Ever  keeping  up  their  character- 
istic of  hostility  to  the  favored  of  man- 
kind, their  wars  and  their  conquests  are 
the  most  thrilling  that  history  has  re- 
corded. 

When  the  learning  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans  left  its  native  places,  it  found 
among  the  Arabs  almost  its  only  reposi- 
tories. It  is  one  of  the  most  singular 
facts  that  to  that  nation,  now  in  its  de- 
cay, lind  yet  occupying  the  deserts  in  the 
East,  Europe  is  indebted  for  its  first  re- 
vival of  this  ancient  civilization.  Hav- 
ing taken  possession  of  the  northern 
portions  of  Africa,  under  the  name  of 
Moors,  they  extended  their  conquests 
across  the  Mediterranean  and  founded 
an  empire  rivaling  that  of  Bagdad,  at 
Cordova,  in  Spain. 

This  occupation  of  the  peninsula 
continued  for  eight  hundred  years.  The 
invaders  came  into  Europe  a  people  ad- 
vanced in  arts  and  arms,  bringing  the 
lore,  not  only  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Ro- 
mans, but  that,  more  fervid  and  thrill- 
ing, of  the  distant  East.     The  religion 


SPA NISH  LITER ATUR E .  205 

they  brought  was  that  strange  faith 
founded  by  the  camel-driver  of  Mecca, 
which,  after  twelve  centuries,  is  still 
the  faith  of  tens  of  millions  of  human 
beings.  They  found  a  people  uncul- 
tured, unused  to  great  wars,  simple,  un- 
exceptionably  Christian,  but  brave,  pa- 
triotic, and  devotedly  attached  to  their 
country.  They  got  nothing  without  re- 
sistance, but  by  perseverance  they  ob- 
tained, in  time,  all  of  that  romantic 
country,  except  the  extreme  northwest, 
where  the  brave  Pelayo,  protected  by 
the  mountain  barriers,  maintained  for 
himself  and  his  followers  the  only  inde- 
pendence of  native  Spaniards,  and  saved 
the  national  identity  of  his  people. 

But  a  whole  nation  could  not  thus 
follow  its  last  armies  and  subsist 
amongst  the  fastnesses  of  the  mountains, 
or  on  the  limited  territories  of  Biscay 
and  the  Asturias.  The  great  body  of 
the  people  must  remain  in  their  native 
places,  submit  to  the  conquerors  and 
obtain  from  them  whatever  indulgence 
it  might  suit  their  whims  to  allow  in  the 
development  of  their  own  separate  exis- 
tence. 


206  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

A  milder  policy  characterized  this 
Mahommedan  rule  in  the  "West  than 
that  which  had  followed  its  advance  in 
the  East.  Except  that  a  double  tribute 
was  exacted  from  the  Spaniards,  and 
they  were  required  to  pay  taxes  for 
their  church  property,  they  were 
treated  with  leniency,  allowed  the  free 
exercise  of  their  religious  faith,  and 
encouraged  in  all  endeavors  for  their 
own  well-being.  Under  such  a  rule 
from  a  vastly  more  cultivated  people, 
the  native  inhabitants  must  necessarily 
have  been  assimilated  to  the  foreigners. 
In  the  lapse  of  time  they  came  into  the 
adoption  of  many  of  the  oriental  habits, 
both  intellectual  and  physical.  Span- 
iards attended  upon  Moorish  princes 
and  chieftains,  fought  in  their  wars, 
learned  their  literature,  and  adopted 
much  both  of  their  ways  of  living  and 
their  language. 

Among  these  Moors  of  Spain  there 
was  an  exalted  culture,  not  only  of  the 
understanding  but  of  manners.     Brave 

o 

and  warlike  they  were,  yet  gentle  and 
courteous  and  generous.  Being  such 
they    engrafted    their  civilization  more 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  207 

easily  upon  the  people.  In  time  those 
Spaniards  who  dwelt  in  their  midst 
were  called  bv  the  name  of  Mozarabes, 
and  were  distinguishable  from  the  Moors 
themselves  in  almost  no  respect  except 
their  adherence  to  the  faith  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

The  most  despotic  acts  of  the  conquer- 
ors were  those  in  which  they  required 
their  own  language  to  be  taught  to 
their  Christian  subjects,  and  to  be  used 
by  them.  But  these  acts  were  sub- 
mitted to.  In  process  of  time  the 
language  of  the  natives  was  well-nigh 
lost.  Christian  Bishops  had  to  trans- 
late the  Scriptures  into  the  Arabic 
language,  and  in  the  archives  of  the 
cathedral  of  Toledo,  the  Archiepiscopal 
city  of  Spain,  are  yet  to  be  seen  ecclesi- 
astical documents  in  this  foreign  tongue. 

All  historians  speak  of  the  splendor 
of  this  Moorish  empire  in  Spain.  It 
seemed  to  be  destined  to  prevail,  not 
only  in  that  country  but  over  all  Eu- 
rope. But  with  that  band  who  retreated 
beyond  the  Northwestern  mountains, 
and  preserved  their  separate  existence. 
the  love  of  country  anc1   their  religion 


208  LECTURES  ON  LITERA  TURE. 

grew  side  by  side  with  the  hatred  of 
the  conquerors  of  their  brethren  of  the 
South  ;  and  during  those  eight  hundred 
years  of  occupation  there  was  not  ab- 
sent for  one  hour,  from  the  hearts  of  the 
Spanish  people,  the  wish  and  the  reso- 
lution to  drive  the  invaders  back  into 
Africa  and  repossess  the  land  of  their 
ancestors.  How  many  a  battle  was 
fought,  how  many  a  knightly  deed  was 
enacted  during  these  centuries  of  con- 
flict! 

From  the  Moors  the  Spaniards  had 
learned  the  art  of  singing  the  exploits 
of  their  brave  and  the  charms  of  their 
women.  Besides,  in  this  border  war- 
fare between  two  peoples  distinguished 
for  the  beauty  of  their  daughters  and 
the  knightliness  of  their  sons,  there 
were  loves  necessarily  springing  up  be- 
tween Spanish  knight  and  Moorish  lady, 
Moorish  knight  and  Spanish  lady,  all 
the  more  ardent  because  of  resistance 
and  of  danger.  These  were  to  be  sung 
or  narrated  in  lofty-toned  Chronicles  in 
a  language  varying  through  many  a 
change,  according  as  the  separate  exis- 
tences of  different  bodies  of  the  Spanish 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  209 

people  multiplied  those  changes,  until 
the  establishment  of  the  solidarity  of 
the  whole. 

When,  after  the  lapse  of  ages,  the 
patriots  from  the  North  had  gotten  into 
the  South,  their  countrymen  had  long 
lost  the  tongue  of  their  ancestors,  and 
in  all  respects,  except  religion  and  pa- 
triotism, had  been  converted  into  Moors. 
Yet  there  was  no  one  controlling  lan- 
guage even  among  those  Spainards  who 
had  lived  separate  from  the  Moors.  Of 
the  four  dialects,  Castilian,  Galician, 
Catalonian,  Valencian,  the  Castilian  be- 
came, through  political  influences,  the 
leading  one;  but  all  these,  with  the  dia- 
lect of  the  South,  which  had  adopted 
that  of  the  Moors,  were  made  to  unite 
(only  with  Castilian  preponderance)  to 
form  the  language,  which,  in  accord 
with  the  eventual  establishment  of  na- 
tionality, was  called  Spanish. 

The  retreat  of  the  Moor  was  as  tardy 
as  his  advance  had  been  rapid.  It  was 
not  until  three  centuries  after  the  con- 
quest of  Spain  that  we  hear  of  one 
great  captain,  and  one  great  conquest. 

The  greatest  name  that  has  come  out 

L.L.-14 


210  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

of  the  confused  annals  of  the  eleventh 
century  is  that  of  Rodrigo  Diaz  de 
Bivar,  commonly  called  the  Great  Cap- 
tain, sometimes  the  Campeador,  but 
oftener  the  Cid.  This  mighty  warrior 
had  founded  for  his  sovereign,  Fer- 
dinand I.,  the  empire  of  Castile  at 
Burgos.  In  his  many  years  of  heroic 
warfare  he  drove  the  enemies  of  his 
country  south  and  southeastward,  and 
his  last  action  was  the  rescue  of  Valen- 
cia far  down  upon  the  Mediterranean. 
The  first  literary  productions  of  Spain 
were  in  honor  of  the  Cid,  his  exile,  his 
return,  his  various  exploits.  I  say  his 
exile,  for  the  Spaniards,  like  other 
nations,  have  at  times  treated  their 
great  heroes  with  ingratitude,  and,  like 
Coriolanus  with  the  Volscians,  he  had 
to  join  himself  sometimes  with  the 
enemies  of  his  country  with  whom  he 
had  found  a  home  and  welcome  protec- 
tion. The  songs  and  the  chronicles  in 
honor  of  the  Cid  were  mighty  influences 
in  continuing  and  keeping  fervent  the 
religious  and  patriotic  fire  of  the 
people. 

Fortunately     for    the     purposes     of 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  211 

Spanish  literature  there  came  to  the 
throne  of  Castile  a  series  of  monarchs 
beginning  with  some  who  were  emi- 
nently qualified  to  lead  in  the  career  of 
civilization.  Deeply  religious,  gifted 
with  that  stately  grace  which  seems 
peculiar  to  Spain,  they  encouraged  their 
people  in  all  arts  useful  to  the  establish- 
ment of  nationality  and  the  devel- 
opment of  their  being.  Alphonso  X. 
had  the  Holy  Scriptures  translated  into 
the  Castilian  tongue,  and  this  was  more 
than  three  hundred  years  before  the 
birth  of  Martin  Luther.  Alphonso  XI., 
in  the  midst  of  a  busy  and  stormy  reign, 
was  not  only  a  poet  himself,  but  he 
gave  encouragement  to  literature,  by 
making  progress  in  it  the  condition  to 
favor  and  offices. 

Not  only  kings  and  ministers  of  state 
were  poets,  but  dignitaries  in  the 
Church,  and  priests,  secular  and  regular, 
and  occasionally  nuns,  devoted  much  of 
their  time  to  the  cultivation  of  letters. 
For  of  all  Christian  people,  the  Span- 
iards have  been  the  most  unchangeably 
religious.  I  do  not  say  the  most  devout, 
but  they  have  been  most  undeviatingly 


212  LECTURES  OX  LITERATURE. 

attached  to  their  faith,  and  the  most 
docile  to  the  teachings  of  the  Church. 
Of  that  long  list  of  writers  in  the 
Spanish  language,  the  most  eminent, 
have,  for  the  greater  part,  belonged  to 
the  clerical  profession,  and  the  sweetest 
poetry  of  Spain,  the  serious  and  the  gay, 
has  emanated  from  the  parsonage  and 
the  cloister. 

Earliest  among  those  reverend  poets 
whose  works  are  of  interest  is  Gonzalo 
de  Berceo,  a  secular  priest.  Of  his 
numerous  works  that  which  has  been 
most  admired  is  the  "  Miracles  of  the 
Virgin."  I  give  a  translation  of  the 
opening  passage  : 

•'  My    friends    and   faithful   vassals  of  Almighty 

God  above, 
If  ye  listen  to  my   words  in  a  spirit  to  improve, 
A  tale  ye  shall  hear  of  piety  and  love 
Which   afterwards   yourselves  shall   heartily  ap- 
prove. 

"I,  a  Master  in  Divinity,  Gonzalo  Berceo  hight, 
Once   wandering  as  a  pilgrim,  found  a  meadow 

richly  dight  • 
Green    and   peopled    full    of   flowers,  of   flowers 

fair  and  bright. 
A    place   where  a   weary    man   would    rest   him 

with  delight. 

"And    the   flowers  I  beheld  all  looked  and  smelt 

so  sweet. 
That  the  senses  and  the  soul   they  seemed  alike 

to  greet, 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  213 

While  on  every  side  ran  fountains   through   all 

this  glad  retreat, 
Which   in    winter  kindly   warmth    supplied,  yet 

tempered  summer's  heat. 

"And    of    rich   and    goodly    trees,  there   grew   a 

boundless  maze, 
Granada's  apples  bright,  and  figs  of  golden  rays. 
And    many    other  .  fruits    beyond    my    skill    to 

praise ; 
But  none  that  turneth  sour,  and  none   that  e'er 

decays. 

"  The   freshness  of    that   meadow,  the  sweetness 

of  its  flowers. 
The   dewy   shadows   of   the   trees,  that  feel   like 

cooling  showers. 
Renewed  within  my  frame  its  worn  and  wasted 

powers ; 
I  deem   the  very    odors    would    have    nourished 

me  for  hours." 

This  was  written  a  hundred  years  be- 
fore the  birth  of  Chaucer,  and,  in  spite 
of  the  insufficiency  of  the  translation, 
there  is  to  be  seen  somewhat  of  the  same 
freshness  to  be  found  in  the  works  of 
the  latter.  The  peculiar  circumstances 
of  Spanish  life  gave  an  earlier  and 
stronger  impulse  to  romantic  literature 
than  had  been  produced  in  other  na- 
tions, and  imparted  a  character  almost 
unique. 

The  controlling  ideas  of  the  Span- 
iards were  their  religion  and  their  coun- 

o 

try.     Their  prose,  therefore,  must  par- 


214  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

take  to  a  great  degree  of  poetry.  The 
historical  romance  in  verse,  and  the 
chivalrio  romance  in  prose,  went  hand 
in  hand  in  recording  and  singing  the  ex- 
ploits of  their  countrymen? 

A  work  which  exerted  a  wonderful 
influence  upon  the  development  of  that 
literature  was  the  "  Amadis  de  Gaul,  " 
written  by  Lobeiras,  a  Portugese,  for 
the  cause  of  Portugal  was  common  with 
the  rest  of  the  peninsula  in  the  struggle 
with  the  Moors.  A  cumbrous  book  to 
be  read  now,  and  not  Very  interesting, 
is  the  history  of  the  love  of  Amadis  and 
Oriana,  the  "Child  of  the  Sea;  "  but  it 
stimulated  that  religious,  patriotic  peo- 
ple wonderfully,  both  in  the  perform- 
ance of  heroio  deeds  and  in  recording 
those  of  others. 

Such  is  the  abundance  of  this  early 
poetry  in  Spain,  so  numerous  were  the 
poets,  all  of  whom  were  warriors  or 
priests  that  we  should  have  supposed 
that  a  larger  number  of  the  names  of 
these  gifted  authors,  and  a  larger  num- 
ber of  their  works  would  have  been  pre- 
served. But  in  the  ever  confused 
condition    of  the   different  dialects,  in 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  215 

the  absence  of  the  knowledge  and  op- 
portunities of  cultivating  the  art  of 
writing",  notwithstanding1  the  vast  num 
ber  that  have  come  down  to  us,  the 
greater  part  were  lost,  and  there  is  many 
a  beautiful  soul -stirring  ballad,  the 
name  of  whose  author  has  not  descended 
to  us.  Indeed,  like  those  of  the  minne- 
singer of  Germany,  these  songs,  many 
of  them,  were  not  written  until  years 
after  they  were  composed  and  their 
authors  were  dead.  The  songs  had 
lived  in  the  hearts  and  upon  the  tongues 
of  the  people,  and  were  written  down 
in  peaceful  times  when  the  great  work 
of  Spanish  endeavor  was  completed,  and 
after  the  singer  had  long  been  dead. 

The  earliest  form  of  this  literature 
was  the  ballad,  and  this  form  has  occu- 
pied ever  since  in  Spanish  literature  a 
more  prominent  part  than  a  similar  form 
has  occupied  in  any  other  European  lit- 
erature, not  even  excepting  Germany. 
They  took  that  form  of  eight  syllabled 
asonants,  as  they  were  called  (in  which 
the  rhyme  was  in  the  last  vowel  instead  of 
the  last  syllable),  which  is  easy  to  write. 
Sometimes     they     were     broken     into 


216  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

stanzas  of  four  lines  and  thence  called 
redonclillas  or  roundelays.  The  sweet- 
ness of  this  form  of  writing,  and  the 
ease  with  which  it  was  produced,  caused 
it  to  be  often  introduced  into  the 
Chronicles  in  which  purported  to  be 
recorded  faithfully  the  actions  of  con- 
temporary times. 

It  has  always  been  deeply  regretted 
that  so  much  of  this  early  literature  has 
been  lost,  especially  the  ballads.  For 
some  of  those  which  have  descended  to 
us  are  of  exceeding  beauty.  In  this 
neighborhood  of  two  knightly  peoples 
there  must  have  been,  as  I  have  before 
said,  many  passages  of  romantic  adven- 
tures growing  out  of  the  loves  of  the 
individual  Moors  and  Spaniards.  For 
the  men  of  both  races  were  as  brave 
as  the  women  were  beautiful.  How 
various  are  these  ballads,  from  the  war 
song  to  the  song  of  the  lover!  How 
various  these  among  themselves  accord- 
ing as  they  tell  of  triumph  or  disaster, 
successful  or  unhappy  love!  As  the 
Moors  slowly  withdraw  towards  the 
South,  a  melancholy  interest  attaches  to 
their  decline,  and  compassionate  things 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  217 

are  said  in  music  which  it  is  touching  to 
hear. 

The  following  is  an  instance  wherein 
is  told  how  a  Spaniard  effected  an  en- 
trance into  the  house  of  a  Moor,  where 
alone  was  a  beautiful  Moorish  maiden: 

"  I  was  a  Moorish  maid  Morayma. 
I  was  that  maiden  dark  and  fair. 
A  Christian  came,  he  seemed  in  sorrow, 
Full  of  falsehood  came  he  there. 
Moorish  he  spoke— he  spoke  it  well — 
'  Open  the  door,  thou  Moorish  maid, 
So  shalt  thou  he  by  Allah  blessed, 
So  shall  I  save  my  forfeit  head. ' 
'But  how  can  I,  alone  and  weak, 
Unbar  and  know  not  who  is  there? ' 
'But  I'm  the  Moor,  the  Moor  Mazote, 
The  brother  of  thy  mother  dear. 
A  Christian  fell  beneath  my  hand; 
The  Alcalde  comes,  he  comes  apace, 
And  if  thou  open  not  the  door. 
I  perish  here  before  thy  face.' 
'I  rose  in  haste,  I  rose  in  fear, 
I  seized  my  cloak.  I  missed  my  vest, 
And  rushing  to  the  fatal  door. 
I  threw  it  wide  at  his  behest. '  "* 

Of  these  ancient  ballads  the  number 
collected  and  published  in  the  "  Can- 
cionero  de  Romances  "  and  the  "  Libro 
de  Romances "  is  largely  over  a  thou- 
sand. Their  subjects  are  fictions  of 
chivalry,  especially  Charlemagne  and 
his  peers,  some  on  Spanish  history  and 

*Ticknor's  "  History  of  Spanish  Literature,"  vol. 
1, p.  110. 


218  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

traditions,  some  founded  on  Moorish 
adventures  and  the  rest  on  private  life. 
Far  in  advance  of  the  romances  of 
Arthur  and  his  knights  were  the  first 
ballads  of  Spanish  chivalry,  of  which  the 
Cid  was  the  theme,  and  Charlemagne 
and  his  peers  came  in,  but  not  for  the 
sort  of  song  with  which  his  praises  had 
been  sunn-  in  France,  for  that  monarch 
had  allied  himself  with  the  Moors,  and 
many  a  song  of  triumph  rose  from  his 
defeat.  The  disaster  that  Charlemagne's 
army  under  Roland  suffered  at  Ronces- 
valles*  grave  existence  to  some  of  the 
most  striking  ballads.  In  "  Lady  Alda's 
Dream  "  is  to  be  seen  that  knightly  ten- 
derness for  the  suffering  of  beauty, 
which  a  victorious  hero  can  thoroughly 
feel  in  the  midst  of  triumph.  Of  all 
the  old  ballads  of  Spain  the  following 
is  probably  best  known  to  English 
readers: 

"In  Paris  Lady  Alda  sits,  Sir  Roland's  destined 

bride. 
With  her  three  hundred  maidens,  to  tend  her,  at 

her  side; 
Alike  their  robes  and  sandals  all.  and  the  braid 

that  binds  their  hair, 


*Ticknor's  "  History  of  Spanish  Literature." 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  219 

And  alike  their  meals  In  their  lady's  hall  the 
whole  three  hundred  share. 

"Around  her  in  her  chair  of  state,  they  all  their 

places  hold, 
A  hundred  weave  the  web  of  silk,  as  a  hundred 

spin  the  gold, 
And  a  hundred  touch  their  gentle  lutes  to  soothe 

that  lady's  pain, 
As  she  thinks  of  him  that's  far  away  with  the  host 

of  Charlemagne. 

"  Lulled  by  the  sound  she  sleeps,  but  soon  she 
wakens  with  a  scream, 

And,  as  her  maidens  gather  round,  she  thus  re- 
counts her  dream : 

'  I  sat  upon  a  desert  shore,  and  from  the  mountain 
high, 

Right  toward  me,  I  seemed  to  see  a  gentle  falcon 
fly; 

But  close  behind  an  eagle  swooped,  and  struck 
that  falcon  down, 

And  with  talons  and  beak  he  rent  the  bird  as  he 
cowered  beneath  my  gown. ' 

"  The  chief  of  her  maidens  smiled  and  said, '  To  me 

it  doth  not  seem 
That  the  Lady  Alda  reads  aright  the  boding  of  her 

dream. 
Thou  art  the  falcon,  and  thy  knight  is  the  eagle  in 

his  pride, 
And   he  comes   in    triumph   from    the    war  and 

pounces  on  his  bride. ' 
The    maidens    laughed,    but    Alda    sighed,    and 

gravely  shook  her  head. 
'Full  rich,'  quote  she,  'shall  thy  guerdon  be,  if 

thou  the  truth  hast  said. ' 
'  Tis  morn;    her  letters  stained  with  blood,  the 

truth  too  plainly  tell, 
How,  in  the  chase  of  Ronceval,  Sir  Roland  fought 

and  fell. 


220  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

The  most  numerous  and  the  best 
among  these  ancient  ballads  are  those 
that  relate  to  the  heroes  of  Spain,  from 
the  Moorish  conquest  to  their  expulsion, 
the  most  illustrious  of  whom  is  Bernardo 
del  Carpio,  the  son  by  secret  marriage 
of  Count  de  Saldado  and  a  sister  of 
Alphonso  The  Chaste.  Next  are  those 
in  honor  of  Fernan  Gonzales,  who  in  the 
tenth  century  recovered  Castile  yet 
another  time  from  the  Moors,  and 
became  its  first  Sovereign  Count. 
After  these  follow  those  on  the  Seven 
Lords  of  Lara. 

In  these  last-mentioned  ballads  there 
is  a  mine  of  inexhaustible  beauty.  In 
all  Spanish  history  there  is  probably  no 
portion  so  full  of  romantic  interest  as 
that  which  is  celebrated  in  these  ballads 
of  the  Seven  Lords  of  Lara.  There  is 
a  double  interest  in  them  grown  out 
of  the  intermingling  of  Spanish  and 
Moorish  feeling  and  action.  The  base 
Velasquez  betrayed  the  seven  sons  of 
his  brother  to  the  Moors,  who  murdered 
them  and  had  their  father  imprisoned 
in  a  Moorish  castle.  But  here  the 
brave    Lara  was  seen  and  loved  by  a 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  221 

Moorish  lady  of  exalted  rank,  who,  unit- 
ing her  fortunes  with  his,  bore  him  a 
son.  This  son,  half  Spaniard,  half 
Moor,  became  the  celebrated  Mecdama, 
who,  espousing  the  cause  of  his  father 
and  his  murdered  brethren,  executed 
terrible  revenge  upon  his  and  their 
kinsman. 

Yet  it  was  the  Cid  who  was  the  most 
frequent  object  of  the  song  of  these 
early  poets.  Some  of  these  are  of 
exquisite  beauty.  The  Cid  had  been 
married  almost  in  boyhood  to  the 
daughter  (Ximena)  of  his  father's 
enemy,  in  order  to  settle  the  deadly 
feud  between  the  two  families.  He  did 
not  know  it  at  the  time,  but  he  was 
loved,  and  perhaps  could  have  married 
Urraca,  the  daughter  of  Ferdinand  the 
Great  who  had  assisted  in  the  ceremon- 
ies of  his  knighting.  Years  afterwards 
when,  on  the  death  of  the  King,  wars 
have  sprung  up  among  his  children,  and 
the  Cid  has  taken  part  with  Sancho 
against  Urraca,  Queen  of  Zarnora,  she, 
while  standing  upon  one  of  the  towers, 
thus  taunts  him  with  the  loss  of  the 
felicity  which  he  might  have  obtained: 


222  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

"  Away,  away,  proud  Roderic, 
Castilian  proud,  away ! 
Bethink  thee  of  that  olden  time, 
That  happy,  honored  day, 
When  at  Janus'  holy  shrine 
Thy  knighthood  first  was  won 
When  Ferdinand,  my  royal  sire, 
Confessed  thee  for  a  son. 
He  gave  thee,  then,  thy  knightly  arms, 
My  mother  gave  thy  steed; 
Thy  spurs  were  buckled  by  these  hands, 
That  thou  no  grace  mightst  need. 
And  had  not  chance  forbid  the  vow, 
I  thought  with  thee  to  wed; 
But  Count  Lozano's  daughter  fair 
Thy  happy  bride  was  led. 
With  her  came  wealth,  and  ample  store, 
But  power  was  mine,  and  state ; 
Broad  lands  are  good,  and  have  their  grace, 
But  he  that  reigns  is  great. 
Thy  wife  is  well,  thy  match  was  wise ; 
Yet,  Roderic,  at  thy  side 
A  vassal's  daughter  sits  by  thee, 
And  not  a  royal  bride." 

But  there  are  many  others  of  these 
old  ballads,  besides  those  of  chivalry, 
and  of  history  and  the  wars  with  the 
Moors.  These  are  on  scenes  in  private 
life,  unconnected  with  wars  or  other 
stirring  adventures.  In  this  respect  the 
Spanish  literature  is  the  very  richest 
and  most  interesting  in  all  the  litera- 
ture of  Europe.  Rich  as  is  the  border- 
land of  Scotland  and  England  in  the 
ballad,  far  more  so  as  well  as  more 
varied  is  Spain. 


SPANISH  LITERA  TURE.  228 

There  -is  especially  one  trait  in  these 
ballads  which  is  to  be  found  nowhere 
else.  The  satirical  and  the  playful  and 
the  picturesque  in  the  ballad  are  not  to 
be  seen  except  in  that  of  Spain.  Lofty, 
soul-stirring  as  are  some,  full  of  tender- 
ness, compassion,  and  soft  melancholy 
as  are  others;  yet  that  versatile  people, 
so  prone  to  poetic  thoughts  on  all  sub- 
jects on  which  the  human  heart  could 
ponder  and  obtain  consolation  and  en- 
tertainment, could  find  sport  in  those 
comic  miscarriages  which,  with  serious 
things,  make  up  the  sum  of  human  exis- 
tence. This  playful  mischievousness  is 
in  no  ballad  literature  except  that  of 
Spain,  and  there  is  among  it  much  that  is 
charming.     Instance  the  one  beginning: 

"  Her  sister,  Miquela 
Once  chid  little  Jane.  "  * 

In  this  old  ballad  literature  there  is 
to  be  found  much  of  poetry  after  the 
style  of  the  troubadours  of  Provence. 
In  this  lovely  region  extending  from 
Italy  on  the  Mediterranean  shore  to 
Spain,  the  Visigoths,  the  mildest  of  the 
northern  barbarian  races,    had   settled, 


*Ticknor's  "  History  of  Spanish  Literature."  vol. 
1, p.  136. 


224  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

and  a  poetry  sweet  and  gentle  like  the 
region  had  sprung  up.  From  long  time 
proximity  had  made  kindred  the  poetry 
on  either  side  of  the  Pyrenees,  and  the 
Spaniards  of  the  Northeast,  unlike  their 
hardier  countrymen  of  the  Northwest, 
cultivated  to  a  considerable  degree  this 
literature,  which  in  the  hands  of  the 
troubadours  was  mostly  devoted  to  love. 

This  literature  received,  however,  a 
far-increased  attention  when  the  crown 
of  Provence  passed,  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, by  the  marriage  of  its  heir,  to  Ray- 
mond Berenger,  the  Count  of  Barcelona; 
and  further,  by  a  similar  acquisition 
from  the  Count  of  Barcelona  of  the 
kingdom  of  Arragon;  and  yet  further 
by  the  exile  of  the  troubadours  who  al- 
most as  a  body  belonged  to  the  heresy 
of  the  Albigenses. 

The  literature  of  the  troubadours 
belongs,  however,  more  particularly  to 
that  of  France.  I  have  mentioned  it  in 
this  connection  for  the  sake  of  its  influ- 
ence in  the  formation  of  the  manners  and 
language  of  that  portion  of  Spain  which, 
from  geographical  and  political  condi- 
tions, was  most  subjected  to  its  influence. 


SPA  NISH  LITER  A  TV  RE.  225 

When  the  different  provinces  became 
eventually  united,  and  Spanish  nation- 
ality was  firmly  established,  this  lighter 
poetry,  like  the  dialects  of  the  Cata- 
lonians,  Valencians  and  Galicians  gave 
way  before  the  march  of  that  Castilian 
which  had  grown  up  vigorous  and  in- 
dependent beyond  the  Northwestern 
mountains. 

As  this  ballad  literature  descends,  it 
changes  its  tone  in  accord  with  the 
waning  power  of  the  Moors.  When 
their  possessions  were  limited  to  Gran- 
ada, their  last  stronghold  there,  in  that 
picturesque  region,  with  the  ever- 
increasing  assurance  of  their  eventual 
entire  expulsion,  the  Spanish  ballad,  in 
the  North  so  warlike,  subsided  from 
that  lofty  tone  and  told  more  of  the 
affairs  of  the  heart,  of  games  and  tour- 
naments. 

It  is  admitted  on  all  sides  that  the 
ballad  literature  of  Spain  is  at  once 
more  varied  and  more  national  than 
that  of  any  other  nation.  I  conclude 
this  lecture  with  the  following  from 
Ticknor's  "  History  of  Spanish  Litera- 
ture: " 

L.L.— 15 


226  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

"But,  besides  what  the  Spanish  bal- 
lads possess  different  from  the  popular 
poetry  of  the  rest  of  Europe,  they  ex- 
hibit, as  no  others  exhibit  it,  the  nation- 
ality which  is  the  truest  element  of  such 
poetry  everywhere.  They  seem,  indeed, 
as  we  read  them,  to  be  often  little  more 
than  the  great  traits  of  the  old  Spanish 
character,  brought  out  by  the  force  of 
poetical  enthusiasm,  so  that,  if  their 
nationality  were  taken  away  from  them, 
they  would  cease  to  exist.  This  in  its 
turn  has  preserved  them  down  to  the 
present  day,  and  will  continue  to  pre- 
serve them  hereafter. 

"  The  great  Castilian  heroes,  such  as 
the  Cid,  Bernardo  del  Carpio  and  Pe- 
layo,  are  even  now  an  essential  portion 
of  the  faith  and  poetry  of  the  common 
people  of  Spain,  and  are  still  in  some 
degree  honored  as  they  were  honored  in 
the  age  of  the  Great  Captain,  or  farther 
back  in  that  of  Saint  Ferdinand. 

"  The  stories  of  Guarinos  and  the  De- 
feat of  Roncesvalles  are  still  sung  by 
the  wayfaring  muleteers  as  they  were 
when  Don  Quixote  heard  them  in  his 
journeyings  to  Toboso,  and  the  show- 
men still  rehearse  the  adventures  of 
Gayferos  and  Melisenora  in  the  streets 
of  Seville  as  they  did  at  the  solitary  inn 
of  Montesinos  when  he  encountered 
them  there. 


SPANISH  I  ITER  I  TV  RE.  227 

"  In  short,  the  ancient  Spanish  ballads 
are  so  truly  national  in  their  spirit  that 
they  became  at  once  identified  with  the 
popular  character  that  had  produced 
thorn;  and  that  same  character  will  go 
onward,  we  doubt  not,  till  the  Spanish 
people  shall  cease  to  have  a  separate 
and  independent  existence.  " 


II. 

Cervantes,  Mendoza  and  Aleman. 

For  seven  hundred  years  the  greatest 
expenditures  of  Spanish  endeavors  had 
been  made  in  the  cause  of  religion  and 
patriotism.  The  literature  of  the  gifted 
among  them  had  been  devoted  on  the 
one  hand  to  magnify  the  most  blessed 
of  the  Saints  in  that  happy  Calendar 
with  the  Mother  of  God  at  its  head,  and 
the  exaltation  of  those  who  had  dared 
the  furthest,  and  borne  the  most  con- 
spicuous part,  in  the  wars  both  upon 
their  religion  and  their  country. 

Spain  has  long  ceased  to  be  numbered 
amongst  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe. 
Yet  there  is  due  to  the  history  of  that 
romantic  country  a  respect  of  its  kind 
to  which  none  in  modern  Europe  is  en- 
titled. Not  one  of  these  has  been  so 
beset  by  foreign  invasions,  nor  has  any 
one  so  persistently  and  successfully  re- 
sisted them. 

During    these    seven    centuries    the 

(228) 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  229 

faith  of  the  Spanish  nation  remained 
the  same,  as  well  as  the  desire  and  the 
determination  to  establish  Spanish  inde- 
pendence. In  these  centuries  of  trial 
it  must  needs  be  that  literature  must  be 
for  a  long  time  mainly  poetic,  and  be 
made  to  celebrate  chiefly  the  saintly  in 
religious  and  the  heroic  in  knightly 
endeavors. 

It  is  not  within  my  purpose  to  notice 
the  numberless  religious  legends,  except 
so  far  as  they  are  sung  in  that  unique 
literature,  in  this  respect  more  inter- 
esting the  older  it  is,  nor  to  discuss 
whether  or  not  their  numbers  and  their 
nature  may  have  given  a  benign  or  an 
injurious  impulse  to  the  religious  being 
of  the  nation.  We  are  rather  now  to 
consider  one  result  of  so  protracted  a 
period  of  general  and  individual  excite- 
ment. 

The  publication  of  the  romance  of 
"Amadis  de  Gaul  "  yet  further  intensi- 
fied the  love  for  the  heroic  which  for 
centuries  had  been  the  principal  charac- 
teristic of  the  Spaniards.  Then  in  the 
daily  life  of  the  nation  and  of  individuals, 
there     were     frequent     occurrences,   so 


230  LECTURES  OX  LITERATURE. 

similar  to  those  even  the  most  mar- 
velous in  this  romance  that  it  was  not 
surprising  that  these  should  come  to  be 
regarded  by  many  as  of  real   existence. 

Out  of  this  belief  and  the  exuberance 
of  fondness  for  the  heroic,  there  grew 
up  the  habit  of  knight-errantry,  which 
led  many  a  knight,  for  the  want  of  ade- 
quate exercise  to  his  valor  at  home,  to 
wander  about  in  search  of  adventures. 
The  most  intense  earthly  joy  among 
such  was  that  which  arose  from  combat. 
These  knights  espoused  the  cause  of 
weakness,  innocence  and  the  oppressed 
of  every  kind.  In  the  lapse  of  time 
such  indiscriminate  and  unlicensed  war- 
fare must  become  extravagant  and 
injurious  to  the  development  of  reason- 
able nationality. 

Such  was  the  case  in  Spain  at  the 
coming  of  a  man,  who,  in  some  respects, 
is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in  the  his- 
tory of  letters.  The  mighty  struggle 
with  the  Moors  had  ended  after  the  union 
of  the  crowns  of  Arragon  and  Castile, 
bv  the  marriage  of  Ferdinand  and  Isa- 
bella, and  the  consolidation  into  one 
of  the  whole  political  power  of  Spain. 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  231 

Near  the  capital  of  the  nation  in  15-47, 
fifty  years  after  the  expulsion  of  the 
Moors,  was  born  Miguel  de  Cervantes 
Saavedra. 

The  youth  of  this  extraordinary  man, 
after  his  course  of  education  at  the  uni- 
versities of  Alcala,  and  Salamanca,  was 
spent  partly  in  that  splendid  capital  of 
Madrid,  where  he  became  a  devotee  to 
the  theatre  and  the  practice  of  writing 
pastorals  and  dramas,  and  partly  in 
travels  in  foreign  countries.  Enlisting 
as  a  soldier  in  war,  he  was  present  at  the 
celebrated  battle  of  Lepanto,  in  which, 
under  Don  John  of  Austria,  Europe  was 
miraculously  delivered  from  the  inva- 
sion of  the  Turkish  power,  then  so  pow- 
erful and  so  dreaded  by  all  Christian 
peoples.  Here  he  lost  his  left  hand,  a 
loss  of  which  to  his  dying  day  he  never 
ceased  to  be  proud.  Afterwards  he  was 
taken  prisoner  by  the  Moors  in  Africa, 
and  was  kept  in  captivity  for  eight 
years.  Returning  to  his  native  place 
poor  and  destitute  of  powerful  friends, 
he  thought  to  resume  the  pursuits  of 
his  earlier  manhood  and  gain  subsist- 
ence and  fame  by  devoting  himself   to 


232  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

writing  for  the  stage  which,  with  the  ad- 
vent of  peace,  had  become  the  centre  of 
literary  endeavors  in  the  nation.  His 
efforts  in  this  line  will  be  briefly  consid- 
ered in  the  next  lecture  when  I  come  to 
speak  of  the  Spanish  drama. 

We  have  seen  in  our  studies  of 
English  literature  how  the  superiority 
of  the  poetry  of  Lord  Byron,  so  pain- 
fully discouraging  to  the  prestige  of 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  drove  him  into  that 
other  field  —  prose  romance  —  in  which 
he  was  destined  to  win  his  greatest 
fame.  So  it  was  with  Cervantes.  The 
drama  of  Spain  fell  under  the  sway  of 
that  wonderful  priest,  Lope  de  Vega, 
and  Cervantes,  unable  to  contend, 
especially  with  those  odds  against  him 
which  I  will  mention  hereafter,  was 
forced  to  withdraw  like  Scott  into  the 
sphere  of  prose.  Mankind  will  never 
cease  to  be  thankful  for  this   necessity. 

Whatever  of  bitterness  or  even  con- 
tempt there  may  have  been  in  the  heart 
of  this  man  in  the  contemplation  of  a 
state  of  society  which  put  before  him  a 
man  to  whom  he  felt  himself  superior, 
we    cannot    measure    now.     He    would 


SPA  NISH  I  ITER  A  TURK.  233 

have  exalted,  had  it  been  possible,  the 
Spanish  poetic  literature,  especially  the 
Spanish  drama,  from  that  condition 
which  has  ever  made  it  controlled  by 
the  tastes  of  the  populace  of  Spain. 
Unable  to  do  this  he  went  with  all  his 
might  against  another  condition  of  that 
literature,  and  in  this  endeavor  he  ac- 
complished a  success  unexampled  in  the 
history  of  letters. 

The  universal  fondness  for  the 
"  Amadis  de  Gaul,"  and  other  heroic 
romances,  recollections  of  the  number- 
less heroic  actions  of  their  ancestors 
during  the  centuries  against  the  Moors, 
had  produced  a  state  of  society  which 
to  the  serious  mind  of  Cervantes  was 
most  injurious,  and  which  he  felt  should 
be  checked.  He  was  sufficiently  prac- 
tical to  know  that  this  could  not  be 
done  otherwise  than  indirectly. 

It  would  have  been  worth  almost  a 
man's  life,  at  least  his  personal  security, 
to  make  a  direct  attack  upon  this  favor- 
ite work,  with  its  kindred,  and  the 
habits  of  thought  they  had  created. 
For  the  nation  at  large  in  their  simplic- 
ity' accepted  as  mainly  true  the  actions 


234  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

therein  recorded.  Therefore  he  chost 
for  his  purposes  two  imaginary  repre 
sentatives  of  contemporary  Spanish  char- 
acter and  manners. 

One  of  these,  Don  Quixote,  was  a 
brave,  generous,  high-spirited,  noble- 
minded  knight,  whose  refined  and  ex- 
alted nature  was  so  overwrought  by 
contemplation  of  the  glorious  actions  in 
the  ancient  days  of  heroism,  as  to  have 
lost  to  a  degree  the  balance  of  a  mind 
naturally  strong  and  gifted,  and  been 
impressed  with  a  desire,  in  spite  of  the 
prevalence  of  peace,  to  restore  that 
state  of  society,  and  even  at  length  to 
imagine  that  it  had  already  returned. 
Now,  a  knight  must  have  his  esquire. 
An  esquire  himself  was  but  a  knight  in 
embryo,  a  youth  being  trained  in  the 
use  of  the  sword,  in  the  study  of  the 
achievements  of  knighthood,  growing 
constantly  in  the  hope  of  living  to  add 
his  own  to  that  glorious  record.  But  it 
would  have  seemed  incredible,  and 
would  otherwise  have  been  impractica- 
ble, that  two  insane  persons  from  the 
same  rank  in  life  should  have  gone  out 
upon  such  enterprises.     It  was  a  most 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  235 

felicitous  thought,  therefore,  when  San- 
cho  Panza  was  selected  for  this  role  — 
Sancho  Panza,  a  "  compound  of  gross- 
ness  and  simplicity/'  whose  understand- 
ing was  too  dull  to  comprehend  the 
absurd  folly  of  the  aspirations  of  the 
knight,  and  whose  selfishness  led  him 
to  confide  in  the  prospects  of  reward 
which  seemed  so  flattering. 

It  was  thus  that  was  conceived  that 
greatest  of  the  romances,  "Don  Quixote." 
The  mad  knight  on  his  poor  steed,  the 
dull  squire  on  his  ass,  Dapple,  these  are 
they  who  sally  forth  to  reenact  the 
lofty  deeds  of  the  heroes  of  olden  times, 
to  fight  with  giants  and  rescue  cap- 
tives. In  this  career  there  is  a  series  of 
dramatic  actions,  so  numerous,  so  mani- 
fold, that  it  is  simply  a  wonder  that  the 
mind  of  one  man  could  have  invented 
them  all.  Beyond  all  praise  is  that  per- 
fect art  with  which  these  two  characters 
are  contrasted  and  yet  made  to  har- 
monize and  cooperate. 

Unlimitedly  absurd  as  are  many  and 
many  an  action  of  the  knight,  ridiculous 
and  inconvenient  and  painful  as  are 
sometimes    the    results    of  his    foolish 


236  LECTURES  OX  LITER  A  TURE. 

endeavors,  yet  on  the  dull,  gross,  selfish 
understanding  of  his  follower  he  ob- 
tained and  preserved  an  influence  which 
imparts  an  interest  to  their  society 
always  intense  and  always  natural.  The 
knight  takes  the  wind-mill  to  be  a  giant. 
Sancho  Panza  has  not  the  slightest 
doubt  but  that  his  master  is  mistaken, 
yet  after  the  disastrous  encounter  he  is 
as  ready  as  before  to  follow.  In  "  Sancho 
Panza  "  there  was  no  more  of  sentiment 
than  there  was  in  "  Dapple."  It  was  well 
there  was  not,  for  then  the  contrast, 
which  makes  up  the  success  of  the  book, 
would  be  destroyed.  Neither  was  there 
much  more  of  character  than  there  was 
in  "  Dapple."  Of  all  liars  he  was  the  chief 
among  mortals,  but  this  served  to  set 
off  better  the  delicate  sense  of  veracity 
which  was  so  beautiful  to  contemplate 
in  his  master. 

Yet  the  understanding  of  Sancho  was 
too  limited  for  him  to  understand  the 
absurdity  of  the  lives  the  two  were  lead- 
ing. The  half  and  half  views  he  con- 
tinually takes  of  things,  partly  coming 
obstinately  to  his  own  conclusions  and 
partly  yielding   to  those  of  his   master, 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  237 

are  the.  very  perfection  of  comedy. 
Witness  the  assent  he  gives  to  the  gen- 
eral conclusions  of  "  Don  Quixote/'  that 
what  had  passed  on  a  certain  occasion 
was  all  enchantment,  doggedly  except- 
ing from  this  general  judgment  himself 
being  tossed  in  a  blanket.  No  enchant- 
ment there  ! 

Now,  of  all  characters  who  are  liable 
to  be  deceived,  those  are  among  the 
most  so  who  are  liars  themselves,  es- 
pecially when  to  this  lack  of  veracity  is 
added  a  gross  selfishness.  Around  the 
innocent  and  truthful  of  this  world  there 
is  often  a  wall  which,  though  not  seen 
by  the  eye,  is  a  defense  against  evil  and 
danger.  Though  virtue  is  sometimes 
betrayed,  yet  it  is  its  own  best  defender 
in  the  long  run,  while  falsehood  and 
grossness  inflict  upon  themselves  their 
own  punishment.  It  was  thus  with 
Sancho  Panza,  whose  selfishness  and 
mendacity  made  him  more  the  dupe  of 
the  extravagances  which  turned  the 
mind  of  his  master.  Numberless  and 
ever  varying  as  were  the  delusions 
which  befell  these  adventurers,  it  is 
wonderful   that  the   mind  should  never 


238  LECTURES  OS  LITERATURE. 

tire  in  considering  them.  That  was 
a  happy  thought  of  the  author  to  in- 
tersperse his  story  with  so  many  epi- 
sodes. Beyond  comparison  interest- 
ing and  beautiful  are  some  of  these 
episodes  which  although  they  do  not 
claim  to  be  so  intended  yet,  with  only 
two  or  three  exceptions,  contribute  to 
the  maintaining  of  the  plot.  Among 
these  episodes  are  many  pastorals  in 
which  sort  of  literature  Spain  abounds 
more  than  any  other  country. 

That  country,  the  loveliest  upon  earth, 
most  romantic  in  its  alternations  of 
mountains  and  valleys,  its  climate  ever 
inviting  to  outdoor  existence,  and  its 
separation  from  the  rest  of  Europe, 
seemed  the  proper  home,  when  its  wars 
were  over,  for  the  sweet  tranquillity  of 
the  pastoral.  Cervantes  had  written, 
when  quite  a  young  man,  two  pastorals, 
the  "  Filena  "  and  the  "  Galatea,"  in 
obedience  to  the  demand  of  his  country- 
men for  that  sort  of  literature.  But  his 
mind  was  too  large  to  be  content  to  de- 
vote itself  to  that  department,  which, 
narrow  though  it  is,  is  correspondingly 
one  of  the  most  difficult. 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  239 

Portugal  was  the  favorite  home  of  the 
pastoral,  and  it  happened  that  in  a  Por- 
tuguese port  the  young  Spaniard  had  a 
rival  for  the  affections  of  the  lady  he 
loved  best.  He  fought  the  stranger 
with  the  latter's  weapon  and  vanquished 
him,  for,  on  the  appearance  of  the  first 
part  of  "Galatea,"  the  lady  gave  in  to 
his  suit  and  became  his  wife  ;  and  that 
conquest  prevented  the  completion  of 
the  work. 

But  this  talent  so  early  developed 
was  availed  of  in  his  great  work,  and 
many  an  idyl  of  marvelous  beauty  oc- 
curs in  the  history  of  Don  Quixote. 

Now,  what  was  the  object  of  Cervantes 
in  this  work?  Some  critics,  with  un- 
common subtlety  of  understanding  and 
fondness  for  speculation,  have  attributed 
it  to  that  singular  combination  of  the 
serious  and  the  sportive  in  a  great 
genius,  which  spontaneously,  and  with 
definiteness  of  purpose,  sets  out  to 
illustrate  these  two  phases  of  human 
existence  in  the  alternate  sequences  in 
which  they  occur  in  the  world,  just  as  a 
philosopher  would  discuss  the  various 
cnaracteristics  of  the  human  understand- 


240     LECTURES  OA  LITERATURE. 

ing.  But  Cervantes  was  not  without  a 
purpose,  and  a  lofty,  patriotic,  humane 
purpose.  He  had  seen  his  countrymen 
given  up  to  an  extravagant  admiration 
for  the  books  of  chivalry  to  a  degree 
as  to  hinder  the  development  of  a 
national  taste  that  was  absolutely  essen- 
tial for  the  production  of  a  sound 
national  literature.  It  was  his  purpose, 
and  so  he  avowed,  to  assist  and  if 
possible  to  destroy  this  fondness,  by 
exhibiting  the  utter  absurdity  of  the 
chief  events  narrated  in  these  romances. 
He  seized  upon  these  adventures,  took 
them  from  all  sane  and  sensible  persons, 
and  handed  them  over  to  a  crazy  knight 
and  a  dull  peasant  and  sent  them  all 
over  Spain  to  exhibit  these  adventures 
in  their  ridiculousness  and  nakedness. 
Never  since  the  world  began  was  a  set 
purpose  so  thoroughly  accomplished. 

When  "  Don  Quixote  "  appeared,  men 
of  all  conditions,  even  those  heretofore 
most  familiar  with  chivalric  romances 
and  most  fond  of  them,  wondered  that 
they  had  not  seen  for  themselves  the  end- 
less absurdities  of  that  of  which  they  had 
been  so  continued  admirers;  and  thus, 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  241 

instantaneously  and  with  one  blow,  a 
single  man  overthrew  a  great  system, 
and  overthrew  it  finally  and  forever. 

And  now  we  are  come  to  the  consid- 
eration of  another  species  of  literature 
which  originated  in  Spain  under  pecu- 
liar circumstances,  and  which,  though 
writers  in  other  tongues,  have  cultivated 
it,  is  yet  preeminently  Spanish.  It  was 
named  El  Gusto  Picaresco,  or  the  style 
of  Rogues. 

Long  wars,  indeed  wars  of  all  kinds, 
while  they  sometimes  develop  great  vir- 
tues which  lead  to  the  establishment  of 
great  principles,  yet  give  rise  to  many 
vices. 

It  is  long  before  a  nation  that  has 
been  at  war  can  settle  down  fairly  to 
the  pursuits  of  peace.  Indeed,  entirj 
peace  did  not  come  to  Spain  with  the 
expulsion  of  the  Moor.  In  subsequent 
alliances  with  Italy,  the  vast  enterprises 
of  Charles  V.  made  the  Spanish  nation 
continue  to  be  a  nation  of  warriors;  and 
the  pursuit  of  arms,  except  by  the  hum- 
blest in  Spanish  society,  came  long  to 
be  considered  the  only  one  that  was 
entirely  becoming  to  a  Spaniard. 

L.L.— 16 


242  LECTURES  ON  LITER  A  TURE. 

In  such  a  state  of  society  the  number 
of  idlers  is  always  great;  soldiers  dis- 
gusted with  warfare,  returned  home, 
yet  unfit  for  other  employments;  and 
others  whose  living  was  made  by  their 
wits,  and  whose  wits,  being  their  only 
capital,  became  in  process  of  time  most 
wonderfully  productive. 

The  Spanish  people  considered  them- 
selves, and  justly  then,  the  greatest  of 
earth.  Under  Charles  V.  they  dreamed 
of  a  Spanish  empire  to  become  great  as 
that  of  the  Caesars.  Added  to  these 
conditions,  the  discovery  and  realiza- 
tion of  the  enormous  riches  of  the  New 
World  made  the  obtaining  of  subsist- 
ence so  easy  in  that  favored  country 
that  the  ordinary  labors  of  a  people,  in 
agriculture,  mechanics  and  trade,  were 
left  only  to  the  sober  minded,  the 
industrious  and  thoroughly  upright, 
while  thousands  of  others  spent  their 
time  in  idleness,  or  in  that  sort  of  work, 
of  its  kind  often  most  laborious,  in  get- 
ting a  living  without  honest  work,  and 
often  especially  for  the  enjoyment  of 
the  satisfaction  which  such  a  means  of 
livelihood  imparted. 


SPA  XISH  LITER. !  TUBE.  243 

In  these  times  not  more  full  of  brave 
soldiers  were  the  armies  of  Spain  in  dis- 
tant fields  than  were  her  towns  at  home 
of  rogues  and  vagabonds.  The  central 
resort  of  these  was  Seville,  then  the 
capital  of  Charles,  where  dwelt  the 
princely  merchants  who  owned  that 
vast  continent  of  riches  beyond  the  At- 
lantic. So  large  a  body  of  citizens, 
exerting  so  great  an  influence  upon  so- 
ciety, must  be  celebrated  in  that  litera- 
ture which,  turning  from  ancient  themes, 
was  beginning  to  represent  modern  and 
contemporary  life. 

Cervantes  in  his  ••Novelas  Exemplares" 
(Moral  Tales),  especially  in  the  "Gitan- 
illa  "  (Little  Gipsy),  and  his  "  Riconete  y 
Cortadillo,"  employed  himself  for  a  time 
in  this  kind  of  work;  but  afterwards  his 
nobler  and  more  serious  nature  led  him 
to  other  endeavors. 

The  man  who  may  be  said  to  have 
led  in  this  strange  literature  was  Men- 
doza,  tholigh  the  one  most  distin- 
guished in  it  was  Mateo  Aleman,  of 
Seville.  Mendoza  was  a  statesman  and 
noble  of  the  very  highest  rank;  and 
to    public    affairs    his    life  was    mainly 


244  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

diverted.  It  is  said  that  while  a  youth 
at  the  university  he  wrote  that  cele- 
brated novel  "  Lazarillo  de  Tormes,"  the 
first  of  its  kind. 

"  It  is  the  autobiography  of  a  boy,  little 
Lazarus,  born  in  a  mill  on  the  banks  of 
the  Tormes,  near  Salamanca,  and  sent 
out  by  his  base  and  brutal  mother  as 
the  leader  of  a  blind  beggar,  the  lowest 
place  in  the  social  condition,  perhaps, 
that  could  be  found  in  Spain.  But, 
such  as  it  is,  Lazarillo  makes  the  best,  or 
the  worst,  of  it.  With  an  inexhaustible 
fund  of  good  humor  and  great  quick- 
ness of  parts,  he  learns  at  once  the  cun- 
ning and  profligacy  that  qualify  him  to 
rise  to  still  greater  frauds,  and  a  yet 
wider  range  of  adventures  and  crimes 
in  the  service  successively  of  a  priest,  a 
gentleman  starving  on  his  own  pride, 
a  prior,  a  seller  of  indulgences,  a  chap- 
lain and  an  alguazil,  until  at  last,  from 
the  most  disgraceful  motives,  he  settles 
down  as  a  married  man;  and  then  the 
story  terminates  without  reaching  any 
proper  conclusion,  and  without  intimat- 
ing that  any  is  to  follow.  Its  object  is 
—  under    the   character   of    a   servant. 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  245 

with  an  acuteness  that  is  never  at  fault, 
and  with  so  small  a  stock  of  honesty 
and  truth,  that  neither  of  theun  stand  in 
the  way  of  his  success  —  to  give  a  pun- 
gent satire  upon  all  classes  of  society, 
whose  condition  Lazarillo  well  compre- 
hends because  he  sees  them  in  undress 
and  behind  the  scenes."* 

Powerful  as  was  the  impression  made 
by  this  work  upon  the  public,  it  was 
much  less  so  than  the  work  of  Aleman, 
which  followed  it.  This  was  entitled 
"  Guzman  de  Alfarache."  In  the  hero 
of  this  play  there  ran  the  blood  of  both 
the  Spaniard  and  the  Italian,  for,  within 
the  last  few  years,  ideas  and  manners 
from  Italy  had  been  imported  and  en- 
grafted upon  the  society  and  the  litera- 
ture of  Spain.  This  Guzman  was  the 
son,  or  supposed  himself  to  be  the  son,  of 
a  disreputable  merchant  of  Genoa,  who 
had  settled  in  Seville.  He  ran  away 
from  home  in  boyhood  and  entered  upon 
a  career  of  scoundrelism,  the  like  of 
which  is  to  be  found  nowhere  else. 

The  popularity  which  followed  the 
publication  of  this  work  was  next,  if  not 

■  ricknor'ss  "  ilis.  Span.  Lit.,"  vol.  I.,  p.  471. 


2  tG  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

equal,  to  that  of  Don  Quixote.  The 
abundance  of  such  characters  in  the 
country,  the  amount  of  fraud  and  trick- 
ery that  were  common  in  all  employ- 
ments, rendered  the  thrilling  narrative 
of  "  Guzman  de  Alfarache  "  the  common 
talk  of  all  classes  of  society,  and  suc- 
cessors and  imitators  appeared  in  abun- 
dance during  a  period  of  many  years, 
such  as  Perez,  Espime,  Yanez  y  Rivera, 
and  Quevedo,  until  finally,  in  the  hands 
of  the  last  mentioned,  a  man  more  ^fty 
minded  than  his  predecessors  in  this 
field,  these  writings  began  to  be  inter- 
mingled with  romantic  tales  and  ballads, 
showing  that  the  public  appetite  for 
such  as  the  scenes  of  the  "  Lazarillo  " 
and  "  Guzman  "  was  satiated. 

But  the  influence  of  this  literature 
extended  far  and  wide  on  its  first  ap- 
pearance. The  "Guzman  "  was  trans- 
lated into  the  several  languages  of 
Europe,  and  novels  with  rascally 
adventurers  for  heroes  in  all  countries 
had  their  historians  and  their  thousands 
to  read  their  recorded  achievements. 
In  this  imitation  France  has  the  honor 
to  have  been  the  most  successful  of  alL 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  2\1 

The  '•<  Gil  Bias  "  of  Le  Sage  is  indeed 
a  wonderful  work  of  this  kind.  But 
the  Frenchman  had  to  take  his  hero 
from  Spain,  as  if  the  Spanish  picaro 
was  the  only  genuine  of  his  class  and 
nowhere  except  in  Spanish  society  could 
the  record  of  such  exploits  be  credited. 

With  the  exception  of  "Gil  Bias,'' 
the  success  in  imitation  of  this  remark- 
able species  of  novel  has  not  been  signal. 
We  have  in  English,  "  Jonathan  Wild," 
"  Jack  Sheppard  "  and  "  Paul  Clifford," 
and  we  should  be  thankful  that  they  are 
no  better  imitations,  or  rather  that  there 
are  no  worse  incitements  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  bad  tastes  and  unsound  morality. 


The  Spanish  Drama. 

The  rise  of  the  modern  drama  began 
earliest  in  the  South  of  Europe  where 
Roman  civilization  held  wider  and 
more  enduring  sway.  There  was  a  rude, 
dramatic  literature  in  Spain  at  the  time 
of  its  occupation  by  the  Moors,  which 
was  a  poor  imitation  of  the  ancient 
classical,  and  which,  being  contrary  to 
the  tastes  of  the  conquerors,  soon  passed 
away. 

In  Spain  as  in  other  European  coun- 
tries, the  religious  plays,  "  Mysteries  " 
and  "  Moralities, "  as  they  were  called, 
were  more  numerous  and  of  longer  con- 
tinuance because  of  that  state  of  publio 
opinion  and  civil  society  which  gave  to 
the  Church  a  control,  almost  absolute, 
over  the   literary  talent  of  the  country. 

The  famous  Inquisition  of  Spain,  so 
much  talked  and  written  about,  so  little 
understood,  watched  the  literary  prog- 
ress of  that  country  with  careful  and 
critical  eyes.     It  seems  strange  indeed 

(248) 


SPA  XTSII  LITER  A  T I  WE.  249 

how  much  of  the  efforts  in  that  progress 
was  tolerated  by  a  tribunal  so  powerful 
and  so  exacting.  But  the  Church  was  as 
wise  as  it  was  authoritative.  Looking 
upon  that  people  of  so  many  dialects  and 
provincial  nationalities,  now  being  con- 
solidated into  one  after  many  centuries 
of  conflicts  in  which  they  had  been  ever 
faithful  to  her,  bringing  with  them  out  of 
these  conflicts  a  restlessness  inevitable 
to  such  conditions,  an  indulgence  was 
given  which  now  seems  to  us  strange, 
but  which  was  meant  to  preserve  in 
times  of  peace  the  same  loyalty  which 
they  had  displayed  in  the  times  of  war. 
The  whole  of  the  religious  drama  of 
the  Middle  Ages  of  Europe  would  be 
unaccountable  to  us  unless  we  under- 
stood the  manners  of  the  times.  The 
Sacred  Comedy,  which  was  made  to  take 
the  place  of  the  Roman,  was  a  most 
curious  intermingling  of  the  comic  with 
the  sacred.  But  it  had  its  day  and  our 
ancestors  had  their  laughs  at  the 
miscarriages  of  the  devil  and  of  vice, 
along  with  their  tears  at  the  recitals  of 
the  sufferings  of  the  ancient  saints,  and 
thus  began  that  intermingling  of  the  seri- 


250  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

ous  and  the  sportive  which  was  especially 
to  distinguish  the  modern  from  the  clas- 
sical drama. 

The  modern  Spanish  drama  is  older 
than  the  English  by  a  century  and,  like 
the  English,  it  was  first  comic  in  its  char- 
acter. The  "  Couplets  of  Mingo  Revul- 
go  "  have  the  honor  of  being  the  first  of 
Spanish  drama,  and  has  been  attributed 
to  Rodrigo  Cota,  of  Toledo.  It  was 
in  verse,  as  most  of  the  Spanish  dramatic 
literature  is,  and  is  as  coarse  as  "Gam- 
mer Gurton's  Needle." 

Such  was  its  grossness  and  the  bold- 
ness of  its  satire  that  the  authorship  was 
not  avowed,  but  the  resemblance  be- 
tween his  first  and  the  next  has  caused 
this  to  be  assigned  to  the  same.  The 
second,  a  dialogue  between  love  and  an 
old  man,  makes  a  yet  further  progress 
towards  dramatic  development. 

These  dramas,  however,  have  much  of 
the  character  of  the  pastoral  in  which, 
as  I  have  said  before,  the  national  liter- 
ature is  abundant.  Many  years  before 
this,  indeed,  there  had  begun  the  habit 
of  reciting  in  public  these  pastorals, 
though  probably  they  were  not  written 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  251 

for  the  purpose  of  public  representa- 
tion. 

In  the  second  play  of  Cota  there  is 
considerable  amount  of  sprightly  dia- 
logue, and  of  a  kind  more  poetical  than 
in  the  first  English  comedies.  Its 
theme  is  the  absurdity  of  an  old  man 
who  had  been  a  hermit  for  a  length  of 
time  suddenly  turning  back  to  the 
world  and  becoming1  a  lover.  We  can 
imagine  what  fun  could  be  made  out  of 
such  a  case. 

The  drama  which  has  become  most 
famous  of  these  earlj  works  is  the 
"  Celestina, "  originally  called  "The 
Tragi-Comedy  of  Calisto  and  Melibea," 
written  jointly  by  Cota  and  Rojas,  of 
Montalvan.  It  is  in  prose  and  con- 
sists of  twenty-one  acts,  but  was 
never  acted  upon  the  stage  and  was 
never  designed  to  be.  The  literary  ex- 
cellence of  this  dramatized  romance,  as 
it  has  been  called,  appearing  so  early — 
a  century  before  Shakespeare — has  been 
the  subject  of  the  highest  encomium. 
Talent  of  a  high  order  is  exhibited 
throughout,  as  well  in  the  portraiture  of 
the  bad  as  of  the  good  characters.     But 


252  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

it  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  any  of 
the  early  literature  of  any  country  a 
work  in  which  there  is  so  much  of  inde- 
cency, not  only  in  the  thought,  but  in 
the  language;  and  there  is  not  to  be 
found  in  any  language  a  work  in  which 
the  doings  of  knaves  and  varlets  of 
both  sexes  are  described  in  lansfuagfe 
so  choice.  Yet  the  authors  claimed 
to  have  had  a  high  and  even  a 
holy  purpose,  which  was  first  to  ex- 
pose vice  in  its  most  attractive  at- 
titudes, and  then  to  point  to  its  most 
condign  punishment.  And  the  pun- 
ishment is  as  terrific  as  the  conduct 
of  the  actors  has  been  vicious  and  se- 
ductive. Even  the  heroine  Meliboca, 
once  so  innocent,  but  finally  ruined 
by  such  acts  as  it  seemed  impossible 
to  resist,  is  driven  at  last  to  suicide  by 
lusting  herself  headlong  from  a  lofty 
tower. 

The  story  of  "  Calisto  and  Meliboca  " 
was  read  by  all  classes  with  avidity,  and 
it  formed  the  staple  for  dramatic  writing 
in  Spain  for  many  a  year  and  with  a 
long  list  of  mediocre  dramatists. 

The  founder  of  the  Spanish   secular 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  253 

theatre  was  Juan  de  la  Enzina,  who  was 
born  in  1468.  He  was  a  priest. 
Among  his  pieces  the  one  called  "A 
Vision  of  the  Temple  of  Fame "  and 
"The  Glories  of  Castile "  have  been 
much  commended.  They  are  a  sort  of 
sacred  comedies,  though  the  "  Esquire 
that  turns  Shepherd  "  and  "  The  Shep- 
herds that  turn  Courtiers  "  are  of  com- 
mon life. 

The  next  most  prominent  name  to 
Enzina  is  Gil  Vicente,  a  Portuguese. 

As  dramatic  representations  these  early- 
productions  were  exceedingly  incon- 
gruous. It  is  interesting  in  reading 
them  to  observe  the  gradual  but  slow 
metamorphose  of  the  religious  plays  into 
those  of  ordinary  human  actions  and 
interests;  to  see  the  modern  ideas  that 
get  into  the  heads  of  the  ancient  illus- 
trious Bible  characters. 

The  following  is  from  the  "  Auto  of 
the  Sibyl  Cassandra "  by  Vicente. 
Cassanova  is  a  beautiful  shepherdess 
who  has  vowed  herself  to  single  life. 
Solomon,  even  with  the  help  of  her  three 
aunts,  the  Cumaean,  Persian  and  Eryth- 
rean  sibyls  and  her  three  uncles,  Moses, 


254  LECTURE*  ON  LITERATURE. 

Abraham  and  Isaiah,  fails  to  change  her 
purpose.  Let  us  try  to  imagine,  while 
such  a  suit  is  going  on,  the  maid  to  sing 
this  vaudeville  : 

"  They  say  'tis  time,  *  Go,  marry,  go,' 
But  I'll  no  husband ;  not  I,  no ; 
For  I  would  live  all  carelessly, 
Amidst  these  hills  a  maiden  free, 
And  never  ask,  nor  anxious  he 
Of  wedded  weal  or  woe. 
Yet  still  they  say,  '  Go,  marry,  go,' 
But  I'll  no  husband,  not  I,  no. 

"  So  mother  think  not  I  shall  wed, 
And  through  a  tiresome  life  be  led; 
Or  use  in  folly's  ways  instead. 
What  grace  the  heavens  bestow. 
Yet  still  they  say, '  Go,  marry,  go,' 
But  I'll  no  husband;  not  I,  no. 

"  The  man  has  not  been  born,  I  ween, 
Who,  as  my  husband,  shall  be  seen; 
And  since  what  frequent  tricks  have  been 
Undoubtedly  I  know, 
In  vain  they  say,  '  Go,  marry,  go,* 
For  I'll  no  husband  ,  not  I,  no." 

The  Spanish  drama  was  something  of 
an  institution  for  a  considerable  time  be- 
fore it  became  a  popular,  or,  as  I  should 
rather  say,  a  secular  one.  Dramatic  rep- 
resentations had  been  for  ages  in  the 
hands  of  the  Church,  which  regarded 
with  jealousy  their  being  devoted  to 
other  than  religious  purposes.     Efforts 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  255 

in  that  .line  under  Naharro,  a  popular 
poet,  were  repressed  and  public  action 
of  plays  was  for  a  long  time  restricted 
to  those  which  were  purely  religious. 
The  main  exceptions  to  this  rule  were 
the  dramatic  pageants,  which,  from  time 
to  time,  were  held  in  honor  of  the  reign- 
ing sovereign.  The  great  popular  heart 
hid  not  been  struck  until  the  coming  of 
I. ope  de  Rueda  in  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  In  his  hands  the 
drama  began  to  assume  a  form  approx- 
imately what  it  has  since  become.  His 
four  comedies  "  Los  Enganos, "  "  La 
Medora, "  "  La  Eufemia,  "  and  "  Arme- 
lina, "  contain  the  first  evidences  of 
plot,  which  was  destined  to  characterize 
Spanish  dramatic  literature  above  all 
other.  "  Los  Enganos"  is  very  like 
"  Twelfth  Night  "  of  Shakespeare,  who, 
it  is  probable,  borrowed  from  the  Span- 
ish poet. 

But  there  had  been,  as  we  have  seen, 
an  early  fondness  for  the  pastoral  in 
Spain,  and  pastorals  were  the  first  pieces 
that  were  represented  publicly  outside 
of  those  which  were  intended  to  be  re- 
ligious, or  in  honor  of  the  monarch. 


256  LECTURES  ON  LITER  A  TURE. 

In  these  plays  of  Rueda  we  begin  to 
see  something  of  the  kind  of  humor 
that  about  this  time  was  beginning 
with  the  new  comedy  in  England. 
Rueda,  himself,  was  a  noted  player  as 
well  as  playwright.  His  performances 
were  in  a  courtyard,  and  nothing  could 
have  been  poorer  than  the  appointments 
of  the  stage,  all  of  which,  it  is  said, 
could  be  carried  in  a  bag.  They  were, 
as  Cervantes  related,  "  four  white  shep- 
herds' jackets  turned  up  with  leather, 
gilt  and  stamped;  four  beards  and  false 
sets  of  hanging  locks;  and  four  shep- 
herds' crooks,  more  or  less."  In  these 
plays  the  fools  or  simples  were  espe- 
cially important  personages,  a  character, 
which,  as  the  drama  developed,  grew 
into  the  famous  Gracioso. 

Rueda  had  many  followers  as  Juan 
de  Timoneda,  Alonzo  de  la  Vega,  Juan 
de  Malara,  Cueva  and  Romero.  But 
little  advancement  had  been  made  until 
the  coming  of  the  great  Cervantes.  Cer- 
vantes when  a  boy  had  often  attended 
the  rude  exhibitions  of  Lope  de  Rueda 
in  the  streets  of  Madrid,  and  the  first 
efforts  of  his  genius  were    devoted    to 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  257 

writing  for  the  stage.  At  least  twenty 
of  such  dramas  were  composed  by  him, 
which  were  favorably  received  by  the 
public.  Among  these  the  most  famous  is 
the  tragedy  of  "  Numantia,"  based  on  the 
siege  of  that  ancient  Spanish  town,  and 
its  horrible  suffering  from  the  Roman 
army  under  Scipio.  The  scenes  in  this 
tragedy,  which  describe  private  and 
domestic  affliction,  are  tragic  in  the 
highest  degree.  Especially  so  are  the 
scenes  between  a  mother  and  her  child, 
and  of  Moranoro  and  his  affianced  Lira, 
when,  though  wasted  by  hunger,  she 
yet  indulges  in  the  greater  grief  of  the 
general  desolation  of  the  city  and  the 
prospective  ruin  of  her  people. 

Cervantes  hoped  to  exalt  the  drama 
of  his  country.  Fortunately  for  man- 
kind he  did  not  thoroughly  understand 
that  condition  of  things  which  made  the 
Spanish  drama  dependent  upon  the  ca- 
prices of  the  public  and  subject  to  the 
control  of  the  Church.  He  was  a  man 
that  knew  not  how  to  yield  his  judg- 
ment to  tribunals,  in  his  opinion,  less 
competent  than  himself  to  decide,  and 
so  he  retired  before  one  more  practical 

L.L.-17 


258  LECTURES  OX  LITERATURE. 

than  himself,  and  instead  of  more 
dramas,  gave  the  world  his  Don  Quixote. 
That  more  practical  man  who  thus 
took  the  field  from  him  was  Lope  de 
Vega,  a  wonderful  genius.  When  five 
years  old  Lope  de  Vega  was  composing 
verses,  and,  as  he  was  too  young  to 
have  learned  to  write,  he  would  have 
older  children  to  write  down  his  lines, 
paying  them  by  giving  half  his  break- 
fast. A  soldier  at  fifteen,  an  ardent 
lover  at  seventeen,  twice  married,  once 
an  exile  in  the  expedition  of  the  ill- 
fated  Armada,  he  finally  became  a 
priest  of  the  Church;  and  this  priest  be- 
came the  author  of  a  list  of  dramas, 
whose  vast  numbers  have  never  ceased 
to  be  the  wonderment  of  mankind, 
The  last  days  of  his  life  were  spent  in 
his  cell,  the  walls  of  which  were  spat- 
tered with  his  blood  which  had  been 
spilled  by  his  own  penitential  infliction, 
His  funeral  was  the  grandest  and  most 

o 

imposing  that  was  ever  bestowed  upon 
any  man  of  letters. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  a 
priest  could  have  been  just  such  a  lit- 
erary man  as  Lope.     For  during  all  the 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  259 

years  in  which  his  time  was  given  regu- 
larly to  offices  of  devotion  and  charity, 
he  was  in  full  fashion  as  a  poet,  and  the 
favorite,  as  he  yet  remains,  after  three 
hundred  years,  of  the  theatre-going  peo- 
ple of  his  country.  The  beginning  of 
his  fame  and  his  popularity  was  laid  in 
his  religious  poem  of  "  San  Isidro,  the 
Ploughman,"  the  favorite  saint  of  Spain. 
Many  other  poems,  mostly  of  this  class, 
were  written  by  him. 

In  his  "  Shepherds  of  Bethlehem,"  a 
long  pastoral  in  prose  and  verse,  occur 
some  pieces  of  exquisite  beauty  as  the 
following,  sung  in  a  palm  grove  by  the 
Madonna  to  her  Child: 

"  Holy  Angels  and  blest, 

Through  these  palms  as  ye  sweep, 
Hold  their  branches  at  rest; 
For  my  babe  is  asleep. 

'  And  ye  Bethlehem  palm  trees 

As  stormy  winds  rush 
In  tempest  and  fury, 

Your  angry  noise  hush. 
Move  gently,  move  gently, 

Restrain  your  wild  sweep; 
Hold  your  branches  at  rest; 

My  babe  is  asleep. 

"  My  babe  all  divine, 

With  earth's  sorrows  oppressed, 
Seeks  in  slumber  an  instant 
His  grievings  to  rest; 


260  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

He  slumbers,  he  slumbers, 

Oh,  hush,  then,  and  keep 
Your  branches  all  still ; 

My  babe  is  asleep. 

"  Cold  blasts  wheel  about  him, 

A  vigorous  storm, 
And  ye  see  how  in  vain, 

I  would  shelter  his  form. 
Holy  angels  and  blest, 

As  above  me  ye  sweep, 
Hold  these  branches  at  rest; 

My  babe  is  asleep." 

The  works  of  Lope,  even  before  he 
became  mainly  devoted  to  the  drama, 
were  enormous.  But,  following  in  the 
wake  of  Bascan  and  Garcilaso,  who  had 
imported  Italian  ideas,  he  accomplished 
nothing  that  was  destined  to  become 
national.  He  began  his  career  as  a 
dramatist,  with  the  old,  long-continued 
foundations  of  the  pastorals  and 
moralities,  whose  religious  character 
drew  toleration  from  the  Church, 
without  which  the  drama  could  make 
no  progress.  His  success  was  imme- 
diate and  complete.  Some  idea  may  be 
had  of  the  enormous  work  he  did,  when 
we  are  informed,  that,  besides  his  othei 
poetry,  he  wrote  nearly  two  thousand 
dramas. 

Lope  saw  the  rock  that  had  wrecked 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  261 

Cervantes  as  a  dramatist,  and  he 
avoided  it.  "  He  took  the  theatre  in 
the  state  in  which  he  found  it,  and 
instead  of  attempting  to  adapt  it  to  any 
special  theory,  or  to  any  existing  mod- 
els, whether  ancient  or  recent,  made  it 
his  great  object  to  satisfy  the  popular 
audiences  of  his  age,"  and  he  succeeded 
in  establishing  the  national  theatre  upon 
a  basis  which  remains  to  the  present 
day.  Never  has  there  been  a  state  of 
society  in  which  these  tastes  of  the  pub- 
lic were  more  various,  and  the  world 
has  never  seen  a  man  who  so  thoroughly 
understood  and  so  entirely  satisfied 
them.  There  were  priests  and  nobles, 
artisans,  ploughmen,  honest  men  and 
knaves,  all  of  whom  it  was  necessary 
for  a  dramatist  to  please. 

Concerning  the  diversity  of  his 
dramas,  Ticknor  thus  speaks:  "There 
seems  no  end  to  them,  whether  we 
regard  their  subjects  running  from  the 
deepest  tragedy  to  the  broadest  farce, 
and  from  the  most  solemn  mysteries  of 
religion  down  to  the  lowest  frolics  of 
common  life;  or  their  style,  which 
embraces   every    change    of    tone     and 


262  LECTURES  OX  LITERATURE. 

measure  known  to  the  poetical  language 
of  the  country.  And  all  these  different 
masses  of  Lope's  drama,  it  should  be 
further  noted,  ran  insensibly  into  each 
other  —  the  sacred  and  the  secular,  the 
tragic  and  the  comic,  the  heroic  action 
and  that  from  vulgar  life,  —  until  some- 
times it  seems  as  if  there  were  neither 
separate  form  nor  distinctive  attribute 
to  any  of  them." 

Of  the  various  kinds  of  dramas,  hero- 
ical,  religious  and  common  life,  his  great- 
est success  was  in  those  called  comedies 
"  De  Capa  y  Espada  "  or  dramas  "  Of  the 
Cloak  and  Sword,"  named  in  honor  of  the 
genteel  class  of  Spaniards,  who  wore  these 
habitually.  The  ruling  spirit  of  these 
dramas  was  gallantry,  with  intrigue  al- 
ways involved,  and  generally  an  under- 
plot of  the  inferior  characters.  Of  these 
the  name  of  their  number  is  legion. 

His  versatile  genius  adapted  itself  to 
all  wants.  His  dramas  of  common  life, 
with  characters  taken  from  the  vulgar 
and  illiterate,  had  in  them  all  that  this 
class  could  desire.  His  heroic  dramas 
delighted  all  those  most  gifted  and  most 

*Tickuor's  "  His.  Span.  Lit.,"  vol.  II.,  p.  205. 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  263 

fond  of  the  recitals  of  ancient  Spanish 
heroism,  and  his  religious  plays  made 
him  the  delight  of  those  of  his  own  rank 
and  profession,  especially  the  "Autos  da 
Sacramentales,  "  which  were  performed 
in  the  streets  on  occasions  of  the  gor- 
geous ceremonies  of  the  Corpus  Christi. 

Of  the  hundreds  of  these  dramas, 
multitudes  were  written  in  the  space  of 
twenty-four  hours,  and  very  many  in 
that  of  three  or  four  hours.  Never  was 
there  a  mind  so  fertile  and  rapid  in  the 
devising  of  plots  and  counterplots  and 
underplots.  To  these  everything  was 
sacrificed.  As  for  the  drawing  of  char- 
acter, Lope  knew  that  the  audience  to 
whom  he  was  to  appeal  cared  nothing 
for  this.  It  would  be  vain  to  look 
through  all  of  his  characters  for  one 
that  stands  out  in  bold  relief  like  those 
of  Shakespeare.  The  character  was  of 
little  importance,  what  was  wanted  was 
the  intrigue;  and  it  is  simply  marvelous 
with  what  rapidity  and  variety  he  could 
work  upon  this. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher  were  the  first 
to  introduce  into  England  the  comedy 
of  intrigue.     Lope  de    Vega    and    the 


0(54  LECTURES  <>S  LITERATI  HE. 

Spanish  stage  were  the  sources  from 
which  they  were  supplied.  The  ruling 
idea  was  to  keep  the  denouement  of  a 
drama  like  a  novel  unforeseen  to  the  last, 
at  whatever  cost  to  character,  probabil- 
ity or  historic  fact.  Lope  gave  this  ad- 
vice to  other  playwrights:  "Keep  the 
explanation  of  the  story 'doubtful  till 
the  last  scene,  for,  as  soon  as  the  public 
know  how  it  will  end,  they  turn  their 
faces  to  the  door  and  their  backs  to  the 
stage.  " 

The  exactions  upon  a  playwright  in 
such  a  condition  of  society  were  exor- 
bitant. A  play  was  merely  a  drama- 
tized novel,  which,  when  it  had  been 
once  read,  was  thought  about  no  longer, 
but  must  give  place  to  another.  The 
great  dramatist  was  found  equal  tc  all 
emergencies.  To-night  he  would  have 
a  drama  either  for  the  gentility  of  the 
common  people,  with  an  abundance  of 
plot  and  counterplot,  and  for  to-morrow 
night,  besides  attending  to  his  offices  as 
priest,  he  would  have  another  with  new 
characters  and  other  plots.  The  drama 
of  last  night  would  be  laid  aside  until  it 
was  forgotten,  and  these  greedy  play- 


SPANISH  LITERATVKi:.  265 

goers  would  be  looking  out  for  another 
for  the  night  ensuing  this;  and  they 
would  not  be  disappointed.  It  is  not 
surprising,  therefore,  that  of  the  vast 
number  of  the  dramas  written  by  Lope, 
less  than  a  fourth  should  ever  have  been 
published.  Created  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  each  a  single  evening,  they  per- 
ished with  their  first  using,  and  were 
brought  forth  again  only  when  time  had 
obliterated  the  memory  of  their  plots. 

Many  a  struggle  had  the  theatre  with 
the  Church,  for  there  was  much  gross- 
ness  even  in  some  of  the  comedies  of 
Lope  the  priest,  but  the  theatre  pre- 
vailed in  time  under  such  compromises 
as  seemed  fair  both  to  the  Church  and 
the  world.  These  compromises  included 
a  reasonable  number  of  religious  plays, 
the  acting  of  one  upon  Sundays  and 
holidays,  and  the  occasional  closing  of 
the  theatres  in  respect  to  mournful 
events  in  the    Church    and    the    State. 

The  last  to  hold  up  the  Spanish 
drama,  then  the  richest  in  Europe,  was 
Calderon.  It  is  pleasant  to  recall  the 
love  and  admiration  felt  for  each  other 
by    these  two  great    poets  of  Spain  — 


266  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

Lope  de  Vega  and  Don  Pedro  Calderon. 
The  difference  in  conditions  made  no 
alteration.  The  former  wrote  for  bread; 
poor  and  without  friends,  except  among 
his  own  class,  and  the  admirers  of  a 
genius  which  they  had  no  means  to  re- 
ward except  with  enthusiastic  praise. 
The  other  was  well  born  and  a  favorite 
most  of  his  life  at  court.  Yet  the  older 
and  humbler  was  proud  of  the  younger, 
and  delighted  in  the  promise  of  his  early 
youth.  And  the  younger  repaid  his 
generous  praise  and  encouragement 
with  everlasting  gratitude.  He  also 
was  a  priest,  and,  but  for  the  death  of 
Philip  IV.,  he  would  have  risen  to  great 
place  in  the  hierarchy.  More  devout 
than  his  predecessor,  the  serious  pre- 
dominates in  his    dramatic  writings,  al- 

thouo-h  he  was  not  without  much  of  the 

o 

humor  that  made  Lope  the  most  beloved 
of  all  his  countrymen. 

Calderon  lived  when  the  glory  of  his 
country,  lately  at  its  greatest  height, 
was  beginning,  unnoticed  by  him  and 
the  rest  of  the  Spanish  nation,  to  decay. 
Conquest  and  expulsion  of  the  Moors, 
discovery  of  America,  vast  achievements 


SPA NISH  L 1 7 Ki;.  1  777.' E.  267 

in  many  wars,  hud  made  Spain  chiefest 
among  European  powers.  Calderon 
was  fired  with  enthusiasm  for  what 
Spain  had  done  for  civilization,  for 
Christianity.  He  gloried  in  his  country 
and  in  his  religion.  The  latter,  he  cele- 
brated in  many  a  drama,  which  ranks 
second  only  to  the  best,  second  only  to 
his  predecessor,  in  amount  of  work  done 
with  his  pen.  These  cover  a  multitude 
of  themes.  He  had  produced  "  The 
Fairy  Lady,"  "  The  Physician  of  his 
own  Honor,"  "  It  is  Better  than  it 
Was,"  "  Life  Is  a  Dream,"  and  others, 
when  Lope,  delighted  with  his  promise, 
foretold  its  glorious  fulfillment. 

While  he  loved  most  the  heroes  of 
his  native  country,  yet  he  celebrated 
many  of  foreign  lands  and  of  ancient 
and  mediaeval  times.  Notable  among 
these  are:  "The  Daughter  of  the  Air," 
on  the  legend  of  Semiramis;  "  Jealousy 
the  Greatest  Monster,"  on  the  story  of 
Herod  and  Mariamme;  "Love  Survives 
Life,"  on  the  rising  of  the  Moriscoes 
in  the  Alpujarras.  Of  his  comedies, 
some  of  the  best  known  are  "  The 
Fairy  Lady,"  "  The  Gaoler  of  Himself," 


268  LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE. 

"  The  Loud  Secret,"  "  The  Scarf  and 
the  Flower,"  in  which  are  a  grace  and  a 
beauty  unsurpassed.  His  favorites 
were  the  Autos,  all  founded  on  scrip- 
tural subjects.  One  of  the  greatest  of 
these  is  "  The  Locks  of  Absalom." 
There  are  many  sublime  and  most 
pathetic  scenes  in  this.  The  tragic 
muse  has  never  produced  a  scene  more 
thrilling  than  in  that  wherein,  at  the 
instigation  of  Absalom,  his  brother 
Amnon  is  assassinated.  In  all  these 
Autos  stress  is  laid  upon  the  beauty 
and  felicity  of  innocence  and  the  misery 
and  punishment  of  guilt,  above  all 
glorifying  the  blessedness  of  the  Holy 
Eucharist. 

His  variously  fertile  genius  was  as 
successful  in  Greek  mythology,  as  in 
Perseus  and  Andromeda,  seeing  in  these 
myths,  dark  as  they  are,  prophecies  of 
the  coming  of  Christianity.  "  Theseus 
in  the  Labyrinth, "  "  Ulysses  and 
Circe. ''  and  the  like,  are  all  prophecies. 
So,  in  the  Old  Testament,  as  in  "  The 
Brazen  Serpent,  "  "  Gideon's  Fleece," 
"  The  Sheaves  of  Ruth, "  and  many, 
many  others. 


SPANISH  LITERATURE.  269 

In  Cakleron  culminated  that  great 
Spanish  drama,  the  richest  in  Europe, 
and,  with  the  exception  of  the  English, 
the  greatest  of  all  time.  Like  the  Eng- 
lish it  was  native  to  the  soil.  It  was  ro- 
mantic and  original,  not  like  the  French 
and  Italian,  classical  and  imitative. 
Never  were  both  patriotism  and  religion 
more  loyally  and  ably  represented  than 
by  this  poet,  who  had  the  happiness  to 
live  in  the  most  glorious  period  of  his 
country's  renown,  and  then  to  depart 
before  its  close. 


KJH 


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